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5n8itu | What happens to muscle when you don't work out for a long period of six months or more? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Muscle never, ever, ever turns directly into fat under any circumstance. Muscle fibers demand. Lot of calories to keep up (take a look at The Rock's diet sometime), and working out basically proves that that level of muscle is required. It \"justifies\" the caloric expense, so to speak. When you stop working out long enough, the justification is gone, and your body stops using the calories to build or keep up the muscle fibers, and they shrink to a size more appropriate for your level of exercise. If you keep eating like you did when you were working out, and you have more calories going in than being used, then your body stores it as fat instead of directing it towards muscle."
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5n8ivk | Why do people say things like 'Uh' and 'Um' while speaking? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's a filler that indicates you're still thinking of what to say next. It often becomes a habit, as an absence of saying anything may allow someone else to interject and thus disrupt what you're trying to say. As a random useless fact, different languages have different filler words. As I recall, some Chinese use a word that sounds akin to the N-word to Americans.",
"These are known as \"buffer phrases\", they also include things such as \"like\" and \"well\". We know that we are supposed to say something, but don't know what to say. So we say things that have no inherent meaning and can be used to string thoughts together. You'll notice that during a Q & A that a salesperson or politician will often begin each answer with the same phrase. Something akin to \"That's a fantastic question . . .\" which they use as an automatic response that buys them time to think of an answer."
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5n8k81 | CRISPR and how it'll 'change everything' | Heard about it and I have a very basic understanding but I would like to learn more. Shoot. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Geneticist here! CRISPR (or CRISPR-Cas9, if you want the full name), is a big improvement in how we genetically modify organisms. All organisms, from single-cell bacteria, to plants, to animals, to humans, have long molecules inside of them, called DNA. The pattern of different molecules in this chain of DNA, called the *genetic code,* provides instructions for building those bacteria/plants/animals. Tiny little machines inside those cells read the genetic code and use those instructions to make every part of the organism, so that it can grow and reproduce! Now, one of the really cool things about DNA is that, because it's the \"blueprint\" for making an organism, we can make changes to the DNA and see the results in the resulting organisms! For example, if we insert the instructions for producing a green fluorescent protein (called GFP for short) in a bacteria's DNA, that bacteria will make the protein, and will glow green under fluorescent light! Unfortunately, inserting a new chunk of instructions into DNA isn't as easy as making a change to a set of blueprints. We can manipulate DNA when it's isolated from an animal, on its own, but there's no way to build a new organism around that naked DNA. If we want to change an organism, we need to get at the DNA inside the cells, without killing them. In addition, cells don't like getting random chunks of DNA shoved at them. They see this as a threat, and will destroy that DNA. So in order to get a chunk of DNA to stay in a cell, we need to incorporate it into the cell's own DNA - merge it in, like glueing a new sheet into the blueprints. In order to add a chunk of foreign DNA, we need to add our chunk inside the cell, break the cell's own DNA somewhere, and then get the cell to fix its DNA by sticking our inserted chunk into the gap. Three tasks. **Task 1:** getting the foreign chunk of DNA into a cell, can be accomplished by using electricity or soap to temporarily \"pop\" the cell's membrane. Obviously, this doesn't work well on adult humans, but it works great on bacteria and single cells. **Task 2:** Breaking the cell's DNA somewhere. This is the really tricky part. Using certain (very nasty and dangerous) chemicals can make the DNA break in random places, but this is dangerous; what if we break the DNA in the middle of a gene that we need? Our cells will die! This is where CRISPR comes in. CRISPR is a combination of a scissor-like protein and a DNA guide that lets it only cut at very specific chosen locations. Unlike old methods, we can be very precise with where we cut the cell's own DNA. We can cut to turn off a gene, or cut at a place where there's nothing but junk so that we can insert our own foreign DNA pieces! **Task 3:** Close the DNA back up, fixing those cuts - with our inserted chunk inside. Fortunately, cells have the machinery to repair DNA cuts on their own! That was easy! ****** **So, CRISPR is a molecular pair of scissors that cuts DNA in very precise locations.** There are still big challenges with genetic engineering - it's tough to get these scissors into a cell, the foreign chunk of DNA doesn't always get inserted, and the CRISPR scissors can still miss and cut in the wrong places. But this is a huge advancement in making more precise cuts, a very important part in creating an organism with new abilities. Feel free to ask questions!",
"This is the best explanation i've seen so far URL_0",
"There are some informative ELIHigh School Biology Student answers here, but here's an ELI5: DNA (the blueprints to your body) is like a Jenga tower, and each block does something different. Now we can swap blocks without breaking the tower. This will let us do different things to your body. Those things could make you healthier or better.",
"This is more on the \"how it'll change everything\" side of the question. The most popular thing that people bring up when talking about what CRISPR can do is designer babies. CRISPR allows for editing our DNA very precisely when compared to previous methods. As the methodology on how to use CRISPR is worked out it will likely become more accurate and safer. Once it's deemed safe enough to use on humans we'll be able to cure all genetic diseases by changing who people are at the root, their DNA. The sci-fi trope for this technology is where a living person can change their genetic code to make them faster, smarter, stronger, or even change hair color or physical features. Currently though most of the talk is about making these changes during fetal developmental stage.",
"[](/sbbook2-ar \"ping\") Well, this [video]( URL_0 ) made it clear to me, but I don't know how \"ELI5\" it's really. I understood it perfectly."
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5n8ll3 | What are the practical living, and political differences, between the USSR and post USSR Russia? | To expand: how different is the current Russia from Russia under the Soviet Union in terms of living conditions, personal freedom, and political structure? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Immediately after the collapse, there was a major increase in homelessness, joblessness, and other social ills we see in the modern world. In the USSR, you had a job, you had an apartment, and if you were a disfunctional alcoholic, it didn't matter. After the fall, jobs went away because why keep factories open that don't make money? In the next decade, Russia was a political trainwreck. The people on the top pretty much just took all of the state owned assets and traded them to eachother, instantly making generals and communist party officials into the oligarch class we see today. It was a sort of \"buyout\" deal, where rich people could get loans from the government for essentially nothing as a stimulus package. THese rich people were then able to buy large majorities in previously state owned enterprises, but the values of these companies were extremely undervalued. In the end, the people that had the most friends at the top became wealthy oil and gas mogols. Cue the 2000's... people got fucking sick of social and political turmoil. As a decade had passed since the collapse, enough time had passed for there to be a rather large generational split, where the older people looked back at the soviet system as being a more fair and better society. They had jobs, homes, security, and they knew who was in charge of collecting bribes. The president of Russia at the time knew he couldn't run for office again, and he was afraid that the next guy to take power might look back at the decade of state-asset looting and decide to arrest him and his friends. So in a stroke of wisdom, he sought out an ally that he could trust to maintain the same power dynamic that he helped build and could garantee that he is not arrested for corruption upon standing down. He groomed a former KGB officer named Vladimir-Putin to be his eventual replacement. At first, there was a push to get rid of the corrupt politicians and whatnot, but when Putin put down the Chechnyan rebels in the Caucus region (Pretty much a terrorist group trained in the middle east and fought for autonomy from Russia) the older russians saw the strong man that they had longed for. Instead of using diplomacy to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis, Putin ordered tanks and Spec Ops to go in and fucking blow the terrorists away. Anywho, Putin successfully won the first election to make him president and then he slowly began dismantleing the democratic rules put in place by Russia's constitution. Coincidentally, the price of oil and gas hit all-time highs during his first two terms as president, so he was able to pay for more social programs and whatnot that were cancelled after the fall of the USSR. in the following decade, he rooted out all serious political threats, consolidate power in the presidency and created the mythically manly man image he has today. ELI5: Before the fall, Russia was a shitty place, but people felt secure in their lives. After the fall, Russia was even shittier and nobody but the super wealthy and connected felt secure. Life for average Russians was difficult. A decade or so after the collapse, the country began sifting toward more of the USSR politics again. Today, the power is pretty much consolidated in the same power circles as before the collapse and people are split along generational lines if this is a good thing.",
"The Soviet Union was 14 different republics, one of which was Russia. Russia today is significantly smaller population wise and somewhat smaller land wise because Lithauania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbijan, Armenia, Georgia, Khazekstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan are independent countries.",
"I'm not an expert by any means, but I remember seeing a documentary in school about it. Apparently the shift was jarring. Many people lost jobs they were secure in because they were government based. Almost all job security went out the window, something I think they're still struggling with. Like I said, I'm not an expert nor have I researched this, but that's what I have to offer. Sorry I can't answer the full question, hopefully someone else jumps on this because I'm very curious as well"
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5n8mtc | The difference between Java, Javascript, and JSON | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Java is a four star hotel. It has most everything you need and there are expectations on your behavior. JavaScript is the motel 6. It's quick and dirty, but it will do the job and you can do whatever. JSON is not going to let you spend the night, but it'll give you directions and info on the hotels.",
"Java is a cross-platform, strongly-typed, object-oriented programming language. It runs everything from your phone (unless you use an iPhone at which point... Eh, you're beyond help actually) to your coffee-maker to web applications to your watch. Java applications run client or server side, meaning they'll be on your local machine as standalone applications or running on a server, feeding web pages to your browser or crunching data to put into a database. JavaScript is a cross-browser, dynamically-typed object-oriented scripting language. It is (mostly) responsible for supplying the client-side scripting to webpages that make them look really awesome and do cool animations, have menus and supply dynamically loaded content. There's a lot more to it that there isn't room to explain. JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation. It's not a programming language but a way to easily, minimally transfer data. It's simply a textual representation of a complex data structure. Every programming language that can communicate with another device, application, IP address etc... Is able to use JSON to communicate (whether they support it or not is an implementation detail). For clarity: I'll try to explain strong vs dynamic typing. It'll be tough and probably not make sense if you're not a developer. Strongly typed languages force you to declare the type of variable you want before you use it. In Java if I want a number, I must declare it as a number and use it as such. In JavaScript I can have a variable be a number but then give it an age property and a street address if I want. HTH",
"Java and JavaScript are programming language. Beside name they have nothing in common that other programming languages have and there is lot of languages that are more similar to Java then JavaScript is. JavaScript is lightweighted and was created to be used on website without being able affect the computer that is using the page. It is used as interpreted language. Java was created as fully-flagged OO language for general purpose. Is used as compiled language that run on virtual machine. JSON is just standard for storing data and is based on JavaScript syntax."
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5n8xgh | Why can't my front windshield have those defroster lines my rear window has that defrost the rear window really quickly? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It can, my 2003 Ford Focus has it. The wires are very thin and embedded inside the windscreen. It's a very common option in the UK. Edit. For those of little faith, Google 'Ford Quickclear Windscreen' and prepare for enlightenment.",
"I did some reading and everything I found said it basically comes down to price. Some companies have made models with front defrost, but it's expensive, and the windshield is expensive to replace. Since front windshields are more likely to get chipped or cracked, they don't put them on cars intended to be inexpensive.",
"Not ELI5, but this [post]( URL_0 ) might help you understand.",
"I could be wrong, but didn't Ford get rid of heated windshields because they mess up red light cameras? The metallic coating reflects the flash from the camera and ruins the photo, meaning no ticket or revenue for the city.",
"I drive a 1995 F250 7.3 powerstroke. Use the hot steamy kisses of all the women I pick up to clear my windshield.",
"Ford had this back to 1987 on some Lincolns with cold weather packages. The windshield had a thin transparent sheet of gold sandwiched between the layers. Upon activation the alternator was full fielded and 140 amps of electricity was delivered to heat the windshield. Really effective when it worked, an incredibly expensive clusterfuck when it burned up the alternator, and harness when it didn't work. Need a new windshield...$3K please, and that was if they were available.",
"Automotive HVAC engineer here! My job literally is responsible for windshield clearing. As other people have pointed out, there are some cars that use the heated wiring up front. I sat in a Range Rover that had it. They were very, very fine zigzag wires across the windshield that could only be seen when focusing your eyes on it. When driving, it wasn't noticable in the slightest. Something that new cars have now is what's called a PTC. This is essentially an electric heater that provides warm air before the engine has had time to warm up the coolant running through the heater core. The air that comes out of it isn't hot, but it's still warm and instantly available on a cold day. Also, most cars offer remote start, which does wonders for clearing the glass in the morning.",
"Some do. Just many thin wires instead of thick ones. It was a 400$ upgrade in my range rover. Curious to see what other vehicles offer it Edit:dirty and dark picture but here's proof URL_0",
"Some cars do have this. Most don't because people in hot places would have no use for this, and it costs money to give this to a car. Front windshields get broken lots more than rear windows, so they need to be simple and cheap or the hot place people would be mad about their money. edit: simpler words for the subreddit this post will go to",
"I was about to say \"yeah right, the lines would wreck your visibility and you can just blast the heater on the windshield vent\" but then I realized I have no idea what I'm talking about because my idea of what a car has is based largely off my totally barebones 2000 Corolla.",
"My 2016 Subaru Crosstrek has them where the windshield wipers come to rest. Has made all the difference in the world on cold crappy days.",
"This must be an annual favourite question. Here are a few more threads of the same question: [One]( URL_1 ) [Two]( URL_3 ) [Three]( URL_0 ) [Four]( URL_2 ) My favourite answer is that the windshields would be very expensive to replace.",
"And while we're on the topic, why in the world don't we have heated roads by now???",
"This is one of those great simple questions we never think to ask. If I were given the choice, I'd want a front windshield defrost before the almost standard rear one. All the vehicles, other than pickup trucks, had rear defrost.",
"It's already been pointed out that some Ford's have it, and to my knowledge they hold the rights to it by patent or something similar. I remember my dad's 2003 S Type Jaguar had it, because at the time Ford owned Jaguar.",
"I'm confused. My front windshield defrosts faster without those lines. By back windshield takes forever.",
"You can buy electric 12v windshield heaters or you can put your Sun shade on the outside of the car, they even make ice shades just for this. URL_0",
"Just throw hot water on it straight out of the kettle!!! It wont break your windscreen i promise!!!",
"This thread has turned into a lot of \"I have a [car and year] and it [has/doesn't have] a heated windshield\"",
"My parents Volvos both have them. You can only really see them if you focus on them, otherwise it's unnoticeable. VERY helpful in freezing rain though:)",
"Some cards have it, but they are EXTREMELY expensive to replace in comparison to the regular ones, and your front window is much more likely to get broken.",
"My 2015 \"Cold Weather Package\" Jeep Cherokee has defrost lines in the bottom corners of the windshield for the areas the wipers can't reach. But not the whole windshield.",
"You know what's worse? When it's so hot and humid outside that running the a/c inside the car fogs up the windshield and creates condensation that doesn't go away unless you constantly run the windshield wipers. Fucking Florida...",
"G-Wagons, W463, have them. Be careful what you wish for though, they are pricey when it comes time for replacement! Another tech thing that I wish all cars had, electric heaters for instant heat until the engine gets to operating temp. If you have ever driven a diesel in a cold environment you definitely understand!",
"It's an eternity to defrost because your starting with the heat. Start with the AC and let it clear up. Once the window is clear switch to heat. It should only take 30 seconds maximum on AC to clean it off. Fogged windows are due to temperature differential, and unless you have electric instant heat your gonna have to do this dance haha.",
"It can. It's an option on Mercedes Benz S-class in the United States, for example. Ford owns a patent for this in the UK, where demand for such a feature is much higher due to the climate and thus offering it as a widely available feature across a brand of mass-market, lower-end cars actually makes economic sense. They call it [Quickclear]( URL_0 ) and it's been available for decades.",
"If you live in the us, thank our ridiculous federal government, who has to manage every aspect of our lives. We lose a lot of features on our cars, thanks to the dot and other dumb agencies. Ex: We can't have glass headlights, because god forbid someone might get cut, but it's ok if you can't see 10ft in front of your car at night, since your plastic lights fogged over.",
"Although it sounds like a nice idea to have electric defrost on our front windshields, I think there are several reasons that it's not done (or commonly done): 1) The air vents and heater core are already up front, so hot air is a very easy implementation that's already been in place for a long time. 2) The visible wires across the windshield would be annoying to the driver. The wires in the rear windshield aren't as annoying because you don't look out of the rear as often and don't need to see as much detail... and people are already used to it. 3) It would increase cost and the majority of people (especially in hot weather climates) wouldn't want to pay extra for it.",
"My friend's Jaguar has them. I figured it was an extra fancy option for luxury cars, but someone mentioned it's a common option in the UK, so maybe Jaguar just has it all the time because British. They're extremely thin and rather wavy, unlike the rather thick and grid-shaped wires (most?) cars have in the back window. You don't notice them when you don't look for them, but as a passenger, it can be irritating to stare through them. As a driver I almost never notice them, but when he's driving, I sometimes just look out of the side window to get my eyes off the wobbly lines. Not sure how that works, probably because you're focused on the road for driving reasons, and not just for bored sightseeing. So personally, I would say it has two reasons. It's expensive to put in there (or at least more expensive than not putting it in there), so warm regions don't have it for the two to four weeks of snow and frost they have. And it can be a bit distracting, and the front shield should be as clear as possible, so you shouldn't have them if you won't use them.",
"your front windshields after a certain date are made of [glass-plastic-glass laminate]( URL_0 ). This is likely to have very different thermal characteristics than straight glass windows (like the rear window, which is tempered glass). \"defrosting\" comes in two forms. The first involves removing condensation build-up on the inside of the windshield. Typically, this requires a heater and blower to get the air temperature up enough to absorb the moisture that humans emit when they exhale. Secondarily, this normalizes the temperature of the windshield with the temperature of the high humidity air being exhaled (which gets mixed with the cool air inside the vehicle to create a lower temperature, super saturated atmosphere that will condense moisture/frost on anything even a few degrees colder). Next, there's the shit on the outside of the windshield. Frost mostly. Ever try to \"defrost\" a windshield with snow on it? Takes forever. and generally only creates lines between the snow. There's a certain \"ice mass\" that these types of defrosting systems can tolerate and they work on outside frost due to the high thermal conductivity of glass. Throw a layer of plastic laminate between inner and outer glass layers and they probably don't work very well at all. Now.... if you were able to invent a electrically resistive (in a manner that produced a thermal by-product) plastic that could be used as a laminate for front windshields, I'd bet you could make quite a bit of money selling it to the automotive industry."
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5n902u | Why do some animal groups, such as birds and mammals, care for their young, while others do not? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Short answer: Because that's what they evolved to do Quite often you'll hear evolution referred to as \"survival of the fittest\" but sometimes it's easier to understand more as \"survival of whatever doesn't die\" If a species of animals is capable of surviving without the need to care for their young then there's no evolutionary pressure on them to do so."
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5n90ia | How does a mechanical keyboard improve typing speed? | I'm already a pretty swift typer, but my dad is a notoriously slow typer. I let him take a look at my clickity-clackity mechanical keyboard, and he was able to type at a much rate than normal (he still typed with one finger on each hand regardless, but quicker than usual). Is it the difference in tactile and sound feedback vs a membrane keyboard? edits: sentence structure, spelling, and word choice | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Tactile feedback is improved, resulting in less missed keys, AND key actuation rate (the speed at which the keys move up and down) is greatly improved, resulting in a more fluid key movement, which can contribute quite a bit to speed."
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5n92qt | What is that pain you get sometimes in your head that feels like something popped and it feels kind of hot for a bit? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Oh, I know that pain! It's the pain you should ask your doctor about instead of internet strangers. But seriously, even if there were a doctor on ELI5, it is impossible to diagnose someone over the internet. If it feels like something is wrong, talk to your doctor.",
"I think i know what youre talking about although it happens to me very rarely if i turn to look at something really fast. Its not like a normal neck strain or anything like that. It literally is like a pop, you feel it instantly. It feels very warm and tingly...very uncomfortable but it goes away quickly. Ive always wondered what it is as well but it just doesnt happen frequently enough for me to care that much!",
"This is caused most often by a pinched nerve in your head/neck. Most likely you have some sort of poor posture that will cause you to feel this from time to time, and simply fixing your posture should remedy this issue. This is usually nothing serious and is quite common in young adults and teens age 12-20 but is still possible even outside of that age range. If you do fix your posture and this issue persists, you should consult a doctor. Having a pinched nerve for too long without redressing it will cause damage further down the road and can lead to severe chronic pain. Lastly, be sure you stretch on a daily basis. Do some neck rolls, back twists, etc. This combined with improved posture can help quite a bit. Source: Mosby's medical dictionary and Thieme's atlas of anatomy (I took information from both)"
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5n94nn | Do people who sing off key hear themselves singing on key? Do they hear other off key singing as on key? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"*Musician There will be people who do think they're in key but still singing sharp or flat. Sometimes its due to change in hearing from aging but also could just be an untrained/lazy ear. Theres probably many people who know they're out of key and have no business singing in the first place, but simply don't care because they can't hear the horrible dissonance they're creating.",
"There are some who do, and some who don't. Tone deaf people cannot distinguish the different pitches in music, so they can't imitate the melody. But they *can* train themselves to sing in key, like if they have a teacher to correct them or record themselves and then play it back. Other people who sing off key can hear themselves, but have difficulty staying in pitch. This can be more easily remedied by breaking down the melody in a song and then imitating it until you can hear yourself matching each note, then doing it over and over again. I fall into the latter category and can always hear myself when I hit an off note, so I imagine my voice is like a keyboard and try going up a semi-tone or tone until I can match it. Interestingly, it's more common for people to be able to tell if a note is flat than if it's sharp, so if you're hearing yourself singing off key, try sliding **up** into a note until you hit it."
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5n972y | Why do females have higher voices than males? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"It has to do with changes during puberty. Males produce a lot of testosterone, which thickens and lengthens the vocal cords, giving a deeper voice. Females obviously don't have as much testosterone, and estrogen doesn't give the effect. As a side note, this is also why kids have super high voices; not only do they lack the large levels of testosterone, but they don't have the age and therefore length of the vocal cords.",
"Might have to do with how screams of pain sound differently between men and women. Causing or ignoring a female's cries of pain makes a sound more like children whereas a man's pain sounds unique. Evolutionarily to protect reproduction, perhaps we are wired to be more averse to pain associated with pregnant women, and children similar to how we are averse to a crying baby. Whereas fighting off aggressive males without aversion may be supportive of the reproductive process, or at least less detrimental to it. Similarly as someone else said vocal cords that sound deeper are associated with testosterone. A male producing deeper sounds signals to attackers that they have testosterone and perhaps above average strength and are more dangerous to attack. Like how dangerous venomous creatures are sometimes identifiable by unique, bright colors."
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20,
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5n9aeq | How does our ear detect the sound vertical location ? | Saying that the sound is coming from the left or the right is "easy" cause we can just use the "volume" of the sound and which ear got it louder to know the horizontal direction. But say we put a speaker in the exact center of our head horizontally. and then we start moving it up above our head, or down under our feet. How does the ears/brain tell the difference ? thanks | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"This one is quite strange and interesting. Your brain calibrates the sound's arrival time against the reflected sound that bounces off your shoulders and torso and back to your ears. It's more complicated than that and pretty fascinating... URL_0",
"You know those curves and dips of your outer ear? They (called pinnae) serve the function to not only catch sound waves but to alter the frequency of the waves depending on which angle the sound waves came from. This is also how we know if the sound is in front or behind us."
],
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3,
3
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"text_urls": [
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"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_localization"
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5n9ehk | Have Any Technologies Peaked? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Firearms. We can keep making them to tighter tolerances by shaving off thousandths of inches here and there, but the fact is the designs are pretty much perfected. You can't do much to alter the basic physics involved in feeding bullets into a gun. Even experts agree that unless a radically new kind of technology shows up (like directed energy weapons) the basic design of a gun isn't going to change much. There have been some innovations like the Kriss Vector, but results have been mixed and the jury is still out on it.",
"Since almost anything could be made out of improved materials, it is hard to prove that anything has actually peaked. Even extremely boring things, like pencils or belts or socks or tables, clearly can be improved if someone invents a superior material to make them out of.",
"Another question is, what can be improved upon, but other things take priority and therefore isn't researched? Look at basic hand tools, hammers and screwdrivers, or garden tools for example. You might see someone add a better grip or some simple twist, but a hammer is a hammer. Can that simple thing be improved upon? Do we bother to try? Or is the simple design all we need?"
],
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3
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5n9g70 | Why do certain chemical reactions take place almost instantly (ex. Li +H20), while others (ex. Fe+02) take place slowly and gradually? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Iron does oxidize near instantly. Once it oxidizes the rate slows down cause the layer of oxidation is protecting the base metal from exposure to additional reactive agents. Additionally that layer of oxidation is pretty important. If it wasn't there, 2 pieces of iron would fuse together if ever they touched. Cold welding essentially"
],
"score": [
3
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5n9o1r | When a phone dies how does it still have enough power to tell me it is dead? | When a phone dies, how/where does it get the power to show the screen of the dead battery? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dc9rjik",
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"text": [
"Because you phone isn't completely dead yet. It \"shuts down\" when it has a small about of power left and uses that remaining power to display the low power message and keep your data open.",
"Lithium-ion batteries are never intentionally drained to zero; doing so would cause irreversible damage, and possibly create an unsafe situation. Instead, devices will cut off at some point to avoid damaging the battery. To reassure users that their phone is still in working order, but with a low battery, the phone may turn on the screen for a brief moment and/or flash a LED."
],
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6,
4
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5n9rzm | What's the difference between having a heater on 72 degrees and having an air conditioner on 72 degrees? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The selected temperature isn't necessarily the temperature coming out of the vents. If you're trying to warm/cool a room to a certain temperature, it puts out more extreme air. Room is 70, you want 72, the heater comes out at 75. Room is 75, you want 72, the AC puts out 70.",
"A heater set to 72 will put hot air into the room if the temperature drops below 72 until the temperature reaches 72 again, then it shuts off. If the temperature is above 72 it does nothing. It could get to 110 and the heater will not try to cool the room to 72 because it only heats. The opposite is true for A/C. Set at 72 it kicks on if the temp gets above 72 and pumps cool air into the room until the temperature gets back to 72 then it shuts off. If you set the AC to 72 in the winter and your house is lower than 72, the AC does nothing. This is different than automatic environmental control like in a higher end car. In that case you set the temperature to 72 and the car always tries to keep it at 72 and decides for itself if it needs to turn on the AC or the heater to keep it at 72"
],
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20,
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5n9zrv | How is it possible for a sail-powered boat to travel against--or, for that matter, faster than--the wind? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"The intuitive way I describe this concept is a watermelon seed on a table. When you push down on it, it will slip and squirt out to the side much faster than your finger pushed down. This is because the force imparted by your finger was redirected into sideways movement and that movement didn't lessen the force input from your finger. Imagine if you were just pushing the seed along the table. Certainly it would move, but only as fast as your finger did. Once it is moving with your finger there is no reason to continue any faster. In this same way as a boat moves with the wind it loses the thrust. Once the boat is moving with the wind from its perspective there is no wind at all! But if the boat moves perpendicular to the wind it can redirect the force to acceleration without losing the benefit of input force. This can allow acceleration without limit to the speed of the wind."
],
"score": [
4
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5na3es | How do search engines know how long someone spends on your site? | I'm learning SEO and I was told to focus on getting traffic so people visit my site, and making the site great so people stay on it. And when search engines see that users stay on my site then they (SE's) will send me traffic. But how do search engines track how many people come to my site and how long they stay? How do they know where people are going online? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"They know when someone clicks a link on the search engine, and they know if someone goes back to the search results after visiting. If people open your site and don't go back, or take a while before they go back, it means they probably liked your site. If they go back to the search results right away, it means they probably didn't like your site."
],
"score": [
3
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5na8l9 | Why does the sound of pouring water change when getting closer to the top of a cup or bottle? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"A cup is a 'closed pipe' as far as acoustics goes. The physics of closed pipes state that, so long as no other parameters of the pipe changes, a decrease in the pipe's acoustic distance will result in an increase in frequency, for Frequency = Speed of Sound divided by 4 times Length of Pipe. Thus, if pipe length decreases, frequency (and thus pitch of sound) increases TLDR: the shortened distance during filling results in an increase of pitch due to how sound behaves in a half-closed cylinder"
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6
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5na9sv | Google Translate's forming its own language | I have read a few articles about this but I'm still very confused. I am not sure if this is something that is able to be explained simply, but it would be great if someone could try!! | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"An article about it from Google: URL_1 Little bit about training neural networks: URL_0 An artificial neural network was trained for different language pairs. To much surprise, they found the same (or somehow similar) neurons activate for phrases with the same meaning for different language pairs. It's thought that this means the network encodes something common to all languages (such as meaning). That is, instead of translating cow (english) to vaca (spanish), it's translating cow to some internal phrase to vaca. The same internal phrase should activate when translating vaca to lehmä (finnish). Interestingly, this wasn't intended. Training artificial neural networks is somewhat of an automatic process. The training process happened to create the internal language on its own. The internal language isn't a language in a normal sense, being able to be spoken or written. Rather, it's set of clusters of neurons where each cluster has a unique meaning."
],
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5
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"http://www.solver.com/training-artificial-neural-network-intro",
"https://research.googleblog.com/2016/11/zero-shot-translation-with-googles.html"
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5naes6 | "Discipline" | I have recently heard the saying "Where motivation ends, discipline must take its place", and tried applying this in real life, but noticed that I don't really have a clue what discipline is, and where the difference between discipline and determination is. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Basically, in this context 'Discipline' is the ability to keep at it and stick to the plan despite how much you have lost interest in it. One can be determined to finish something, but that can be worn away very quickly if it is not reinforced with discipline. Edit: In many ways, determination is synonymous with motivation."
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5nau39 | How come our body can absorb protein from food like cooked chicken, shouldn't they denature? | When I accidentally microwaved protein powder once, I saw all the powder clump up which is sign of denaturing but how come cooking chicken won't denature those proteins and our bodies can still absorb it. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"We're using the amino acids that make up the proteins to produce new proteins. Digestion denatures them if cooking didn't. And cooking chicken does denature some proteins. The gooey white stuff you see on chicken breasts sometimes when you cook them is mostly coagulated proteins.",
"They do, and that is how we absorb them. Whole proteins are way too big to be absorbed into your bloodstream through the cells that line your intestine - they just physically wouldn't fit. Your stomach contains specific enzymes, called proteases, which cut the proteins apart into their individual components, called amino acids. These are small enough to be absorbed by your body, and those then get used by your cells to build new proteins."
],
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5nb3m2 | Why isn't body language taught like any other language or skill? It's used everyday by everyone in one way or another, but it seems like it's ignored as far as a skill worth developing in school. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"I think all complex living organisms learn to read body language subconsciously anyway. Also, it doesn't have real practical application: school tries to teach you things you can apply and already fails to give students kickstart to 21th century due lack of time and funding. Spending precious time of something that has vague utility just doesn't make sense. It would also increase load on homework and general stress of students, unless you cut something else out to make room for body language lessons. There's tons of things students should possibly learn, are quite important and aren't taught in the school, like first aid, swimming, self-defense, etc, even though one could argue those are critical to being alive. I guess body language just falls to the bottom end of the list, with yoga, playing checkers and making potato salad or whatever."
],
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5nb4vi | How did Reddit get so popular? Who were the first group of people to find Reddit, and how did they come across it? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Actually the two founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian made a bunch of fake accounts to post links on other websites guiding to their newly created website that they just put online with the help of a start up company. The rest is history.",
"Summer of 2005, Paul Graham (one of our investors) wrote a blog post and linked to us in it a few weeks after we launched the site. That was our first flood of traffic and a lot of those folks stuck around.",
"I'm pretty sure it started as a place for people in the tech industry to share articles. You couldn't even comment at first - in fact, the very first comment of all time was in response to the post announcing that you could comment, and it was someone complaining that it would ruin reddit. Someone will post the link shortly I'm sure! Another thing, subreddits didn't exist either. I think the original got moved to /r/reddit when subs were introduced. Edit: spelling",
"This is my 10th year here, but not on this account. I started at URL_1 and found Reddit on a news-aggregator aggregator ( URL_0 ) It contained Fark, Reddit and Digg, among others. Fark faded, and Digg collapsed. Many ended up here. If you want a feel for what Reddit was like in the \"olden days\", check out URL_2 ."
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"http://snapzu.com"
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5nb6c9 | Why can cameras record 4K-25fps, FHD-50fps but not 4K-50fps or more? | My new camera (Panasonic FZ1000) can record in 4K - 25fps, but can also do FHD at 50fps and even HD at 100fps. The [Wikipedia]( URL_0 ) page even says that it has more capabilities, but restrained by the firmware : * Full HD 1920×1080: 100 or 120 fps * HD 720p 1280×720: 200 or 240 fps * 640×360: 300 or 360 fps I found this to be quite common on modern cameras, and apparently there is even high-speed cameras used to record explosions or bullets for example that can go much higher by reducing pixel density. How do this process work? *Why do we need to reduce pixel density to increase fps?* Why can’t a camera record at 4K - 50 fps for example if it can do FHD - 50fps? Is it about processing power, data size or is it about the mechanics of image capture? Also, is there a limit or a record of the maximum frames per second achievable? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> processing power, data size That's exactly it. Larger resolution and FPS require more processing power as well as more bandwidth to transfer the large amount of data to the camera's storage."
],
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5nbcup | Why Do We Get a Lump in Our Throats Before We Cry? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"When we are crying, our body is essentially in a state of stress. Stress activates our sympathetic nervous system which is responsible for the fight or fli8ght response. This increases blood flow and respiration. To allow for the extra respiration, a muscle called the glottis opens up for more air to pass through. Now when you need to swallow it creates tension in this muscle, resulting in that lump-like sensation. Edit: Spelling",
"I looked it up for you OP! According to [this website]( URL_0 ), the autonomous nervous system helps deal with emotions and stress. Part of its job is to help us breath more easily (in case we need fight/flight reflex) by opening up your throat. When we swallow, it is an opposing motion that registers as a 'lump'.",
"I've never experienced this before. Is it because I had my tonsils removed when I was young?"
],
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5nbd6g | Why is taking an aspirin before the surgery harmful? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"It prevents your blood from clotting properly! Hence, if you want to walk out of the surgery without blood gushing from your wounds you shouldn't take an aspirin right before it :) EDIT: words",
"Because aspirin is the only NSAID with blood thinning properties: that's why it's used in prevention of CV events at low dosage ( < 100mg).",
"They also usually don't want you to take ibuprofen (Motrin/Advil) before surgery, either. And make sure of the number of days before surgery that you can't take them."
],
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5nbk6q | Why are people happy that Obama is finishing up as president? I always thought he was the best thing that happened to America. (I'm Irish, don't know much about politics in the us) | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"To say Obama is the best thing to ever happen to America is ludicrous. Obama isn't the worst president, but he's certainly not the best. I don't want to get bogged down in left and right wing politics too much, but here is a list of his shortcomings, as I see them: 1. Didn't push for a public option on Obamacare. Now Obamacare is a private insurance mandate with benefits, but nothing to regulate policy cost. 2. He had basically no response to the Libyan crisis. He said using chemical weapons was a red line, and then proceeded to stare at the red line doing nothing. Libya is still a failed state to this day. 3. He said his administration would be the most transparent in U.S. History. It has been one of the most secretive. 4. He said he would stop intelligence agencies spying on U.S. Citizens without due cause (such as a warrant). Surveillance of the U.S. Citizenry has been greatly expanded under Obama. 5. Obama said he would withdraw troops from Iraq as soon as feasible. He did it basically in-line with the Bush timeline. 6. Perhaps the biggest reason Obama is disliked by so many is that he turned out to be a bunch of hot air. He ran on a campaign that promised change, he seemed genuinely passionate about improving the country, and he gave hope to people from all social strata. Then, almost as soon as he took office (after he was re-elected for some of the more egregious betrayals), he pulled a 180 and turned out to be an entirely average run-of-the-mill white-collar corporate shill.",
"His approval rating is very high right now. You are getting a skewed view from Reddit and Facebook.",
"There are a lot of \"reasons\" along a spectrum of clear to speculative. It's at least in part due to some very polarizing signature policies and campaign promises like the Affordable Care Act, the Iran nuclear agreement, etc. Conservatives in particular were apoplectic about these policies. It's also due in part to long-standing intractable American political issues like abortion rights and gun control, which continue to be very divisive and make political bases that much more rancorous. The President also took office at a perilous economic time, and while the economy has undoubtedly improved under his Administration, those improvements have not benefitted many in the working class in a meaningful way, so that different leadership may seem more appealing. On a more speculative end, a chronic problem of the American left is a particular brand of intellectual paternalism and ethical hubris, which President Obama may seem to well embody The right tends to perceive him as talking down to them- explaining that if they just put their thinking caps on, they'll see the correct ideas. It's hard to gauge fairly on the aggregate, but it seems possible that such a posture is particularly hard for many white Americans to hear from our first black President because race-oriented tension, if not overt racism influences perceptions of both his policies and demeanor. In my opinion, the Obama Administration was largely a good one, beset by an obstructionist Congress and our culture's shared inability to compartmentslize hot social political issues. However, while I will miss many of his policies, I must confess that what I will probably miss most is the same thing many people around the world not as directly impacted by American politics - his thoughtful, elegant, and engaging persona. Changing political climates and issues make direct comparisons very hard, but in the long run I think people will view him more favorably than they do now."
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5nbnuw | why are good shows like firefly and futurama cancelled, while there are tons bad shows running on so many networks ? | I mean even if they got cancelled from the original network , Why not go to some other network and replace one of the crappy shows. Edit: thanks for the reply guys. Many of you have pointed out that good and bad are relative, which is probably true for most things, I guess. As for a network, a good show is one which is cheap to produce, while makes a lot of money; a show makes money by appealing to a lot of people. Sci-fi shows do not appeal to a lot of people, whereas reality-tv/game shows appeal to a lot of people, and are relatively cheap to make. Also as Prof Farnsworth said, "I don't want to live on this planet anymore." | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Both Firefly and Futurama are good shows with a cult following but not good ratings in the average population. Most of the bad shows have a lot of viewers because their content hits a much broader market. The production cost of these shows also plays a big part. Most bad shows can be mass produced for almost nothing. Hire a bunch of bad writers and bad actors and give them a TV set bought on the cheap and a film crew under training and you have a cheap soap opera watched by millions. Or rent a concert hall, sell tickets to be in the audience and on stage, hire a few hired judges and use the remote camera crew that currently have no other events to cover and you have many hours of a cheap talent show. On the other hand Firefly had 9 highly paid main actors and two star script writers and directors. They required a lot of different props to be made, performed stunts, pyrotechnics and utilized CGI in every episode. For the cost of making another season of Firefly to entertain the browncoats they instead made ten seasons of a silly game show that were watched by bored people who could not find anything better to watch which is a larger group.",
"4 things: 1. Ratings - How many people in the general Nielson Ratings Population watches it. 2. Cost to produce - How cheap it is to make an episode. 3. Number of episodes - Once you get over 88 episodes you might get syndicated. So if you are close, they might let you get another season to round it out. 4. Network Branding - Does the show align with what the current CEO/President's vision of what they want their network to be known for. Ideally a show hits all of these. Good ratings, Cheap to make, Enough episodes for that sweet syndication money, and aligned with the CEO/President's vision. BUT if you are really strong in 2 of them you can survive. Firefly didn't check these boxes. It is a niche show (low Nielsen ratings), Expensive to product (Especially compared to reality tv), Wasn't even CLOSE to getting syndicated. What it DID have going for it was that the President actually loved the show. Which is why it even got a shot. edit: Math",
"All about them ratings. Sure those shows carved out their niches, but the average viewer (people who think big bang theory is funny) didnt care for it.",
"Just because you think they are good shows does not mean the general population does.... thought this was kind of obvious or were you just trying to vent?",
"Futurama did switch networks, multiple times. Ultimately they all decided that the ratings weren't good enough to justify the continued investment in producing new episodes. Networks are in the business of making money, not producing good shows. Sometimes they can do both, but not often.",
"Some others have given good examples, but I'd like to add one: *Sometimes* the actors (or voice actors) are ready to move on to other things. If enough of the key actors feel that way, it could be difficult to keep the show going. Imagine if Billy West had said \"Yeah, I'm really sick of doing the voices on Futurama\". It would be super hard to replace him.",
"What is a bad show? To a television network, a bad show is one that doesn't bring in enough money. Firefly and Futurama had intense following from a small group of people. Reality TV has a range of intensity of viewers (from those who want to be *like* the stars, to those who watch it just to mock it), but from a massive amount of viewers. That makes more money. Plus, it's super simple and cheap to make Reality TV shows vs shows with special effects or animation.",
"How good a show is doesn't really matter. What matters is how many people watch it. You don't even need the people watching the show to actively *like* it. A studio will take a million people saying \"Meh, this is fine, nothing else is on\" over 100,000 people saying \"Oh man, I can't wait, 5 more minutes to the premier of season 2\". This is why you get so much lowest common denominator TV, especially on the networks. It's about broad appeal. Doesn't have to be a STRONG appeal... just has to be good enough to get you to stick.",
"Everything's been already said but I just want to add that what you may consider 'good' or 'bad' doesn't necessarily reflect others' opinions and is completely subjective. That actually comes as pretty snobbish without you actually knowing it."
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5nbpg0 | What is the downside to taking out lots of loans, or credit cards and declaring bankruptcy? (UK) | I should preface this by saying this is a hypothetical, and i'm not actually going to do this. I have a good job and house(mortgaged). My Experian credit score is 999 out of 999, I am already approved for 10's of thousands in credit. As i understand it, credit cards and personal loans are unsecured debt, meaning they can't take my house if i fail to pay. What stops me from buying £50,000 worth of gold on my credit cards, and not paying them back? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"That's not quite how unsecured debt works. All it means is they can't automatically claim ownership of your house if you miss three payments. But they can still sue you in small claims court, and a bailiff will confiscate your property, sell it, and give the money to your creditors. Now, if you wanted to take out loans without risking your property, you would need to form a Limited Liability Company (LLC). This is what Limited Liability means in the name: the company's debts are covered only be the assets of the company, not the assets of its owners. Of course, nobody's going to give a big loan to an LLC without collateral and a history of repaying loans! In theory you could also take out a bunch of loans, spend the money, and declare personal bankruptcy. This makes debts go away, but you don't get to keep your property. Again, there's a court-appointed administrator that gets control over everything you own, and everything you make for a number of years. You get to keep basically some clothes and pots and pans, everything else is sold to pay back your creditors.",
"1) Doing this deliberately would be fraud, and if they could prove you never intended to pay, you could end up in prison. 2) You can only declare bankruptcy if you actually don't have anything to pay the debts back with. If you had £50k worth of gold, the credit card company could obtain a court order to seize it, and sell it off ... before you could claim bankruptcy. Unsecured doesn't mean they can't take your stuff, it just means it's not secured against a specific thing. 3) If you are bankrupt, you cannot borrow any money at all until the bankruptcy expires .... usually 7 years, I believe.",
"A bankruptcy filing has a million other implications as well. Small things such as cell phones are tied to your credit score so you might not be able to get a cell phone plan if you declare bankruptcy and instead have to rely on a pay as you go type of provider. Same thing with cable, Internet, and home phone access. Car loans will be either impossible or at immensely high interest rates. Even some employers run your credit score, with your consent, as it shows a sense of responsibility that might otherwise be faked in an interview/resume Companies aren't going to risk that you cannot pay them back."
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5nbykn | What causes the weird taste when you burn your tongue? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Taste buds help to get the taste sensation. When they don't work you don't get the taste sensation. Your Brain tries to fill in the gaps."
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5nc4zt | Why do some shows have "and ACTOR as CHARACTER" in their opening sequence, while all other actors are named without character? | It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has "and Danny Devito as Frank Reynolds". May not be the best example, as he was only added after the first season. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's called \"last billing.\" The order that the actors are listed in the credits is listed as billing. Generally, the bigger a name you are, the closer to the front you'll be listed. That's called \"Top Billing\" and it's the best place to be -- listed first. But sometimes you'll have two actors of similar stature in the same production. Clearly, both of them can't be listed first, so the next best thing is to be at the end of the credits. Typically, it's separated from the rest of the actors with the word \"and\" or \"with\", and sometimes the character name is listed as a way to make the credit stand out more, even though it's not top-billed. This is the kind of stuff that's worked out with the agents and the lawyers as part of the casting process.",
"Last billing is a way to give more stature to an actor who doesn't justify top billing, but deserves some recognition. Often you'll see for a big name, but fading star or a star with a lesser role."
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5ncay3 | What are "steel cut" oats/oatmeal and what makes them (apparently) preferable? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The took the whole oat berry, which is hard like a little stone, and chopped it up into little chunks with \"steels\" to make it easier to cook. Rolled oats are oats that are steamed, rolled to be flattened, and dried to be even easier to cook. Quick oars are chopped, steamed, rolled, and dried to be even easier than that to cook. And whole oat berries are a pain in the ass to cook. Whole oat berries, boil in water, simmer for 2 hours, hope for the best. Steel cut oats, boil n water, simmer for 45 minutes, kind of a chunky texture. Rolled oats, boom in water, simmer for 10 minutes, much less chunky. Quick oats",
"I think these are all great answers, but no one has answered the \"what makes them (apparently) preferable\" part of your question, at least not from a nutrition perspective. The idea is that some of these carbohydrate sources take longer to digest and so are preferable for long-term energy. Quick, rolled, etc. are broken down faster by the digestive tract and produce more of a short-term spike in blood sugar; they have a higher glycemic index, which is considered bad. In general these less processed, more slowly-digested carb sources are considered healthier. They do take longer to cook, though. I know from my personal experience that if I eat steel-cut oats for breakfast, maybe with some nuts and dried fruit, I'm good for five or six hours before I start to feel hungry and low on energy again. Quick rolled oats, I can't go nearly as long. URL_0",
"Steel cut oats are whole grains, chopped into smaller pieces but otherwise still intact. This means they take longer to cook, but since they're not rolled out or processed, they retain their shape and have a heartier texture after cooking. Rolled oats are whole grains, but rolled flat so they're quicker to cook. After cooking, they tend to have a softer texture, but still retain their shape somewhat. Processed or \"instant\" oats are precooked and THEN rolled flat. They cook the fastest and tend to cook to a goopy'er texture, not holding their form well."
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5ncbb2 | How do viruses and colds form and where do they come from? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"First, the condition known as the \"common cold\" is a viral infection by any of several hundred different species of virus. The rhinoviruses (literally \"nose viruses\") are the most common culprit, but there are other viruses which can produce the same symptoms. Second, if you're asking where the actual viruses that infect us come from, the answer is \"The surrounding environment, primarily surface contact.\" Someone infected with a cold virus will shed live viruses from their nose and eyes. If they wipe their hands, they'll get viruses on their hands, which they can then transfer to other surfaces (including people) by touching them. Cold viruses can survive for the better part of a day on an exposed surface, making them pretty robust as far as these things go. This is why you're supposed to wash/sanitize your hands if you have a cold! Third, if you're asking where viruses as a category come from. . . you may as well ask where life itself comes from. Viruses are thought of as \"pseudo-living\", in that they are far too. . . *rambunctious* to be considered inanimate. If nothing else, they contain genetic material and are capable of a form of reproduction. Yet they lack some pretty important characteristics of truly living things (e.g., cellular structure, a metabolism, etc.). There are certainly theories, but at root, nobody has claim to genuine knowledge there. As far as anybody can tell, viruses have existed as long as life itself. Figure out the origin of one, and you'll basically figure out the origin of the other.",
"The nose contains shelf-like structures called turbinates, which help trap particles entering the nasal passages. Material deposited in the nose is transported by ciliary action to the back of the throat in 10-15 minutes. Cold viruses are believed to be carried to the back of the throat where they are deposited in the area of the adenoid. The adenoid is a lymph gland structure that contains cells to which cold viruses attach. URL_0"
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5ncdwm | Why do we usually put hills or foliage on roundabouts, obscuring the view of other vehicles? | it just seems so much safer to have a flat roundabout so you can clearly see vehicles. idk if its just a UK thing but it seems like most roundabouts have a manmade hill or tons of big trees | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"To clearly mark the boundaries of the roundabout. Imagine if it's dark, or you're impaired, and all you see in front of you is flat open space. One might be tempted to cross straight through a roundabout as if it were a normal 4-way intersection, endangering any vehicles likewise inside the roundabout. Plus, your attention should be focused immediately to your left (or right if you're in the UK) as that's the flow of traffic you'll be entering. You shouldn't be concerned with who is directly opposite you in an roundabout because you won't encounter their vehicle while merging into the intersection (unless they blow straight through like a 4-way intersection [which might happen if the middle is flat and unmarked])",
"It's to make you slow you down so you CAN'T see, if you think you CAN see you'll hit the roundabout full tilt like the other car who thinks they CAN see. Similar traffic calming measures are used at corners to make you STOP, look then go.",
"Where I live in America, all of our roundabouts are flat concrete slabs. They are as light colored as sidewalks so you aren't going to miss it unless you cant even see sidewalks. They were also all made within the past few years, so there isn't any precedent for foliage roundabouts.",
"It's actually because it obscures the view of oncoming traffic on the other side, you are more likely to move onto a roundabout if you can't see traffic joining on the other side. The efficiency of roundabouts relies on the fact that there should always be two vehicles on it at the same time. Also something you can look out for very small roundabouts \"the pointless ones\" are usually flat, while medium roundabouts are built like skyscrapers and then the huge ones are flat because the closest junction is usually miles away, not literally. The best example I can give you is the magic roundabout in Swindon, that s**t is just scary (Close your eyes and hope and pray for the best)"
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5nciyi | How do embassies work? | Im asking because Im watching "Shooter" and *spoiler warning* the main characters daughter is kidnapped and taken to the Russian embassy, and I realized I have no clue what kind of implications that might have. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's a common misconception that an embassy is sovereign soil of the country that occupies it - it's not. An embassy is not a little bit of your nation somewhere else in the world. However, embassies do enjoy special protected status under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961, namely: * Immunity from searches or entry, by law enforcement or the like. * No entry without permission. * An expectation of protection by the host country. All this means that if a country wants to shelter someone inside their embassy, there's not a lot the host can do about it without violating these international standards. If an embassy gave permission, police could come inside and conduct searches and make arrests on non-protected personnel (diplomats are protected). But if someone goes inside the embassy and the country who occupies it doesn't want the host to get them, they can't go in unless they violate this convention. Which would result in diplomatic backlash from the embassy's occupier. [Here's a good article on this type of thing.]( URL_0 )"
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5nckyj | How come when you're about to fall asleep - all sounds around you amplify and seem very loud. | Hey, I was just lying on couch watching TV, I nearly fell asleep and just when my eyes closed and I felt lightweight and like I am about to fall asleep - all sounds seemed very very loud. Shouldn't it be opposite? I mean shouldn't all noise around you fade out as you're falling asleep? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You could have [Exploding Head Syndrome]( URL_0 )(EHS), which is the coolest syndrome that I have ever heard of. EHS is a benign condition in which a person hears loud imagined noises (such as a bomb exploding, a gunshot, or a cymbal crash) or experiences an explosive feeling when falling asleep or waking up. These noises have a sudden onset, are typically brief in duration, and are often jarring for the sufferer. EHS is classified as a parasomnia and a sleep-related dissociative disorder by the 2005 International Classification of Sleep Disorders, and is an unusual type of auditory hallucination in that it occurs in people who are not fully awake. Unfortunately, neither the cause nor the mechanism of exploding head syndrome is known.",
"I heard about this in my psych course, the basic principle that psychologists believe for this phenomenon is that when you're body is ready to relax, and has a lower inherent ability to guard itself, it heightens the priority your instinctual brain holds to the noise around you to help keep you safe and aware of your surroundings. Your eyes close and your ears open. It's all situational, and is the same reason things seem louder in generally-quiet situations or when you're in tense or frightening circumstances."
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5ncl4h | Why is a single 'Horsepower' equal to 550 foot-pounds per second (ft-lbs/sec)? How was this system created and measured? | I'm currently in a physics class, and my professor says that the system, as well as the numbers involved, is inherently arbitrary. I'm coming here to ask for any more insightful information on the subject. | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"After steam engines were developed, they began replacing the draft animals they were frequently using for power. When James Watt made some improvements to a steam engine and started selling them he wanted a number that would indicate to buyers how large a team the engine could replace (ie if a mine used 2 horses to lift ore a two horsepower motor could do the same work or a 4 horsepower motor would do roughly twice as much work, etc) or a brewer using a horse to turn a mill stone might need a one horsepower motor to replace the horse). So he did some measurement of how much work a draft horse could do over a period of hours, and found it was averaged about one horsepower. Then he could build engines that provided similar or more output than the draft teams, could work without changing teams, and burned less costly fuel than the multiple teams of horses required to get full day of work.",
"James watt measured how much power you get from a horse turning a mill wheel and used that as one horsepower. URL_0"
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5ncnil | When feeling anxious/having an anxiety attack, why does it feel like it's so difficult to get enough oxygen? | For example, when my anxiety is bad, my lungs constantly ache because it doesn't feel like there's enough oxygen, even when I do deep breathing exercises. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you are anxious, you tend to breathe *too much* (hyperventilate). This changes your body's preferred oxygen levels, which has the unfortunate effect of making you feel out of breath. You also tend to try to regulate your breathing on your own because you believe that you aren't getting enough oxygen because hyperventilation makes you feel out of breath, which only (a) messes up your breathing even more, and (b) makes you focus on breathing and all of your thoughts around having a hard time getting oxygen. Finally, anxiety causes muscle tightness and you have muscles all over your chest and abdomen, so it can feel harder to take a full breath. However, if your lungs hurt all the time, it might be a good idea to talk to a doctor :)",
"It's your animal instinct. If your body feels its under threat, it will start hoarding resources before \"the others\" take it. That's why you are so thirsty right after being told you have limited water, and the first thing you do in a small space with limited air is start breathing extra. Because if you take it all now and hoard it, you'll live longer, and \"the others\" can't take it back from you. It can be irrational, because it ignores social agreements that everyone conserve so we all live, but it's how we're wired. You can override this mindset with training and/or therapy. Since you said you do deep breathing exercises, I assume you have the skills on good days. The next step in your training is to learn to override your instincts on the bad days and use the skills as you were trained."
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5nco58 | The "Old Math" in Tom Lehrer's New Math | If you haven't heard the song, he describes the way they used to do math as follows: > Consider the following subtraction problem, which I will put up here: 342 minus 173. Now, remember how we used to do that: > Three from two is nine, carry the one, and if you're under 35 or went to a private school, you say seven from three is six, but if you're over 35 and went to a public school, you say eight from four is six ...and carry the one, so we have 169. He then proceeds to the song, which explains regrouping, the way I learned to do math growing up in the 90s. How did they teach it before? | Mathematics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Before regrouping, arithmetic was taught as a mechanical procedure to follow and practice religiously, without any regard to why it works. 3 4 2 -1 7 3 ------- When subtracting a larger number from a smaller number, you'd pretend there's an extra 1 before the larger number, so 2 - 3 becomes 12 - 3. Then after writing down 9, you'd \"carry\" that extra 1 to the next line. Then you can either subtract one from the top number, or add one to the lower number - they're equivalent, and continue. It's pretty much exactly the same as regrouping, but the idea of \"carry the 1\" doesn't really give you any insight into how it works.",
"Old math was about rote learning of the calculation algorithms. You carried and borrowed, but never really knew what that meant mathematically. They were just things you did to get the right answer. New math tried to make it more conceptual. A lot of parents complained about and mocked the new math, because they never really understood math, so it didn't make sense to them. I have always found it ironic that they chagrin for new math was born out of the very ignorance it tries to correct. You see it again today with a lot of the change that happened at the same time as (but not because of) Common Core. Parents don't understand an assignment was about estimation and throw a Facebook fit when their get gets mark down for giving and exact answer.",
"I think the new way is: 7 gets you to 180 27 gets you to 200 127 gets you to 300 167 gets you to 340 169 is the result. Anyway I saw some people complaining on facebook that their kids had to learn this. Seems much easier to me."
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5ncq5d | How does developers input "traps" in their software for pirated copies? How do they distinguish between real and pirate, and why can't someone just upload new copies without it? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This is called \"digital rights management\", or DRM. DRM comes in a variety of forms. When software came with printed manuals, sometimes there'd be information on the manual the program would force you to enter. Later, when software came on CD's, often extra DRM data on the CD was written in non-standard locations that can be read by most CD drives through low-level operating system calls, but cannot be written by most home CD burners. For game consoles, games use proprietary cartridges or discs that are different from normal forms of those media. The console manufacturer basically tightly controls the production of physical copies of games. So for the most part, you can't e.g. simply use a normal DVD burner to make copies of Wii games. These days, where most software is bought and sold on the internet, DRM has to take a different approach because there's no physical stuff you can put extra required information on. It often involves the software contacting a server being run by the publisher (or the contractor providing the DRM technology), and ensuring the usage of the software is authorized. For example it may check that the serial number is legitimate, or it may require the user to login to an account. It will also generally deny access to serial numbers or user accounts that are seen in multiple locations. > why can't someone just upload new copies without it? This is called \"cracking\", \"warez\" or \"software piracy.\" It takes some technical sophistication to figure out how to crack software, and it's illegal in the US. That doesn't stop people from doing it though. A lot of times the people who crack software also insert malware -- cracked versions of the Windows operating system are especially notorious for being crawling with malware. Many users regard DRM as evil. Some reasons for this: - If the company running the DRM server goes out of business or decides to shut down the server one day, software you've bought may stop working. - If the DRM requires an internet connection, you can't use it if you don't have an internet connection available. - It makes it difficult to create backup copies of software, in case the physical copy wears out or is accidentally destroyed (for example in a fire or flood). - If DRM locks the software to a particular machine, you have to purchase a new copy of the software if you buy a new machine or perform extensive hardware upgrades. - DRM fails of its objective of preventing piracy. Despite using the best available DRM technology, cracked versions of popular software tend to quickly appear after release. - DRM assumes users are criminals. This is very insulting."
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5ncsgw | How do companies like Netflix and HBO know it's worth producing their own shows when they have no way to gauge how much money they earn as a result of each show? If Game of Thrones costs $x, how does HBO know they would lose more than that in subscriber revenue if they cancelled it? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Interestingly, Netflix has quantified viewer interest. They've found a way to use the staggering amount of information gathered from their viewers over the years to pinpoint story concepts, genres, plot elements, directing and cinematic styles that have the best chance of success among their viewers. All of the star ratings, viewing habits, customer demographics, reviews, binge-watching habits for TV shows (and so, measurements of which TV shows keep your attention for the longest span of time), ALL of these factors have been meticulously collected and studied, and they've resulting in some of the biggest hits on \"TV\" such as Orange in the New Black, Stranger Things, House of Cards, etc. This doesn't so much answer the question of how they figure how much money each TV shows has made them, but it does give you insight on how they meticulously calculate the financial impact of a TV/movie idea before producing it and releasing it as a Netflix original. Their models have been fairly accurate between projected and actual revenue generated.",
"They also realized that having a well-regarded show led to solid continuing revenue through DVD sales (although that has probably slowed down as streaming has been replacing DVD). Around the early seasons of Game of Thrones, some HBO execs said that if they had had any idea how much money they would make off of DVD, they never would have canceled \"Rome,\" \"Deadwood,\" or \"Carnivale.\"",
"You do a lot of different things to gauge the success of your show, like show the pilot episode to an audience and measure their response, do market research and see what kind of shows people are interested in, what sort of dynamics between characters they're interested in etc. Other than that you simply have to go with your gut feeling.",
"HBO and Netflix do not have the same models, and that is important to understand. Netflix has direct subscribers who pull data (videos and playlist) directly from their servers. By categorizing all content and tracking viewer time in each content, they can know what kinds of things you like. This is the same as amazon being able to suggest things to you based on how you use the website and what you actually buy. HBO, on the other hand, primarily has cable subscribers, where HBO is offered as part of larger packages. Thus, there is an interplay between the cable retailers who bundle and market channels into premium packages, and companies like HBO that actually package the viewing content. That said, HBO, and all TV station, primarily are informed through home surveys, the Neilson ratings. These can be automated or paper, but basically a sample of the public is always being taken and comments on what they like and do not like. HBO also gets some data such as subscription rates and viewer statistics from regional cable companies, but this is nowhere near as detailed or accurate as what Netflix gets. These days, the easiest way for HBO (and most companies without the advantage of netflix) to learn what people really like is to data mine the internet. They hire specialist to spend time on social media, figuring out what is popular, which of their products are popular, and also manipulating the market by being part of the conversation and/or inserting advertising. This strategy works well as the target demographic are more tech savvy. HBO isn't advertising to 70 year olds, and now the average 50 year old can facebook. Still, the use of social media is much more limited in older demographics, so for those, more traditional data collection methods are more appropriate. A show aimed at 40 and younger, internet works very well. HBO doesn't earn money per show, but rather per subscriber. So, a general sense of popularity is accurate enough. HBO also is realizing the power of content generation, which was not where they started. But in generating content, there certainly are risk. When a a show becomes populary, HBO will milk it for all it is worth, generating long running series. This mitigates the risk of creating or showing less popular material. Predicting popularity is key, because your investment into building a show is heavily front laoded. So you do lots of research and testing and run ideas and scripts and sample performances by steadily larger samples. This is generalyl never public (sometimes seen on dvd extra material). In any case, once it is broadcast, the question becomes, is the show as popular with everyone as it was with our test audiences. If not, then they will just air the first few episodes (which are generally all paid for and with mostly sunk expenses by the time any announcement of an upcoming show is made.) If it seems popular (lots of people tuning into HBO, lots of talk on the internet) then they run with it. This is also why shows tend to jump the shark. It is easy to run with positive news, but very difficult to catch drops in interest and correct or end a series. Netflix can more precisely measure interest and so do this a bit better, but they also can simply recommend whatever you like at that day, HBO can not know this.",
"Sometimes, it's not just about the P/L for a specific show, but the idea that they create well regarded programming that make people more likely to subscribe. Even if they specifically don't care for Game of Thrones or House of Cards, the idea that they have high quality programming that may be of interest will cause some to subscribe, others to keep subscribing, etc. In some ways, it's like Ford developing their GT-40 or Chevy making their high end Corvettes... the cost to develop and build in small quantities aren't necessarily profitable in their own right, but the \"halo effect\" from those enhance the overall brand in the mind of consumers, who might end up buying an Explorer or Malibu. Or subscribe to Netflix for high brow shows like Chef's Table or House of Card but end up binding on Friends reruns",
"Netflix and HBO know how many people watch a given show. Based on that number, they know things like what percentage and how long those people are likely to keep their subscription. They can calculate differences in subscription behavior by people who watch original content and people who don't. They also know their cost of production and the cost of royalties from a show they didn't create. From those sources, they can come up with a very good approximation of the financial success of an original show.",
"The amount of consumer data out for sale/mining is enormous. I work in a similar field where we predict cellphone mobile trends in regards to user consumer preferences and let me tell you, WE KNOW EVERYTHING. The basic concept is; get the data, create segments of users based on applying specific algorithms or queries . Then we run analytics on those particular segments for a given time period to discover trends and return on investments. So an example would be: December was a big month for American sports, We ran a search for all users who are likely to purchase a sports related item during this time period (based on prior sales, team affiliation, Geo location, shopping trends, web trends, time of day purchases are made, and so on..) and send them a friendly remind or promotion. The users we are sending to specifically have a 1-5% (Y) chance to buy an item at X. If the cost of the campaign (Z) is less than X*Y, then we run the campaign. Edit: This all at a very high level. A large % of this process is already automated in order to reduce human error and provide faster response to live data.",
"Keep in mind that they also have direct revenue streams by selling BluRays of the shows, as well as licensing them for overseas distribution, as well as merchandise sales.",
"I am a 20 year TV executive producer... And HBO doesn't really care, per se, about the cost of any one series. Some shows are 'loss leaders' - Take for example, The Garry Shandling Series, Larry Sanders -- which had pretty bad ratings at the time it ran. HOWEVER -- and this is the important part, it was a media and critical darling. It was written about and gushed over -- which is tons of free advertising. The streaming services have a certain amount of churn every month, meaning some % of people drop the service, another % sign up new. They work to either slow the churn or reduce it. If they do research that a % of the audience would like to see a show like \"Fuller House\" they try and determine what % of their current subs would like it -- and what % of new audience will it bring? The streaming and cable company's also make deals to sell their content down the road -- for sale in European and Latin American markets underserved by streaming and cable. Think about this: HBO has about 40 million US subscribers who pay about 12 bucks a month or 5.7 billion annually grossed. A large % of that money is for content creation. In the years where you get Game of Thrones, you might also get one or two less full new series, and instead, get a bit more documentary programming, or the like, which costs much less to make. I can not impress upon you enough that TV in general cares about PUBLICITY -- so, even a high priced failure, that gets people talking can also be a good investment for them -- For example, HBO did that series about horse racing. Dustin Hoffman was the star. There is a % of people who don't have HBO who signed up to see that series and even though it was cancelled, they stayed subscribers. And lastly, HBO knows that even if they aren't satisfying ALL their subs all the time, people stick with paying for the service because something good will come soon. Also, people are lazy. Really lazy. And it takes a lot of energy to cancel your subscription. And HBO, et al knows this.",
"Some great responses here, but I'll also point out they can look at social media and whatnot, and assign a dollar value to the entries there. I'm pulling some numbers out of my ass, but hopefully they help get the concepts across. For instance, it may be that for every 1000 tweets about the show, then they can assume one person will sign up for the service (or renew, if they had been thinking about lapsing). If 1 million people are talking about the show, then they will make $X amount from subscriptions just for that show. If $X is more than the cost of making the show (or even less, if they think it's worth it) then they can make decisions based on that whether or not the show is worth it.",
"Finally a question I can answer. Short Answer not 100% but they can guess using financial models(predictions using data). Long answer: In every studio there is a finance department that builds models of shows based upon what type of show, who is in it, what it will cost, demographics, and how much revenue generated through xzy merchandise or etc. The show then goes through a vetting processes with the studios to get green lit to get funding. For HBO and Netflix, they have real time data they could use instead of using someone like nelson for ratings information so they can develop shows easier targeting the right groups. Using that information they could build a few more models for Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 time frames and figure if the cost from producing one show with the subscriber revenue would be enough.",
"As they're always adding and removing and rotating content, they'll measure what's currently available or not available on its library (or things like what's recently been added or removed) against its current subscriber level (is it increasing or is it slowing down, or is there a big spike?). They'll be able to gauge data such as that to see what is making people sign up, cancel, stay a member for a short time, or stay for longer periods. They test so much stuff that you don't realise. Changing little things like the description or thumbnail image of each movie or show across different users to see which are clicked and viewed most. It's important to note with the subscription model that it's all about keeping customers for as long as possible, as obvious as that sounds. $10 a month for a subscription account doesn't sound like much but it's £120 a year. It's exactly why so many companies, such as Microsoft with its Office suite, or Adobe with their editing suites, have switched to the monthly subscription model. For any company, all new customers take at least a small amount of time, resources or effort to acquire. It might cost Netflix an average of $10 to attract each new subscriber, so they need to get them to sign up for more than the initial month for that to be profitable for them (just basic example numbers).",
"There is a very simple explanation it seems many people aren't picking up on. One of Netflix's major expenses is the $'s they have to pay when people view content. I'm not going to pretent to be intimate with the details, but would assume it works somewhat similar to Spotify in that each view pays out $x based on the contract between the content distributor and Netflix. This is a variable expense, meaning that if User A pays $10 a month and watches 100 episodes of a show that cost netflix $.10 per view they break even on you (and actually lose money when you net down that $10 for credit card processing, physical plant, marketing, payroll). If User A instead watches 50 episodes of content they pay $.10/view for and 50 episodes of Netflix Original Content. They only pay out $5 for the content they didn't produce. So think about it this way, every episode of Netflix Original Content you view is one episode of other content you ARE NOT watching. Meaning they make the $.10 on that view. Aggregate all the people that watched the show, subtract out the fixed cost to make and advertise the show and there is your profit. It also means they can actually assign a Break Even viewership to compare the production and marketing costs to, and can then make an educated decision whether they think this content will hit that viewership. Yes, some will argue if the content is truly compelling it would incentivise people to watch MORE than they originally would have, and I'm sure you could account for this through some behavioral analytics, but I would assume the average person has 2 hours (or whatever the number is) a day to watch programming, regardless of how compelling it is or where it comes from. Especially when you factor in Law of Large Numbers, they can predict the average users time spend watching, and every minute you spend not consuming content they have to pay out per view contributes to their bottom line.",
"In some respects, it's more about future-proofing their business than explicitly making money off their original content in the short-term. Netflix and HBO need to build their libraries of content that they actually own, rather than just license, or in twenty years they'll be entirely obsolete and not worth the subscription fees. Netflix's original business model makes them a middle-man. But major studios are all moving in the direction of offering streaming services. If Disney (Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, ABC, ESPN... all that and then some under that umbrella) can offer their entire library of content online for a similar subscription fee, they'll have no incentive to license any of it to Netflix, and consequently Netflix's library shrinks. Without original content that Netflix owns, their offerings will dry up. But the more they produce, the more titles they can offer that will never go away due to expiring licensing deals.",
"The amount of data available to these companies is staggering. They have data and analytics experts who are able to draw correlation between these show performance and subscriber metrics and their models are very accurate. That's the ELI-5 - they have experts on these topics and maths :) Note to the kids - you want a good career future and like numbers? Become a data ~~analyst~~ SCIENTIST. It's going to be a huge growth area in the future. The longer answer is that the primary business of HBO and Netflix is to gain and retain subscribers. That's how they make money. The product they sell is content. By looking at BOTH the viewing habits of their millions of subscribers, and the long-term engagement numbers (correlating hours watched, when people lapse, when people are join) they are able to build sophisticated models that can tell them when they are going to loose people, when they have to manage their network for binge-watching, and what *types* of content will retain or gain new customers. They then simply build that into the financial model for the show. They expect that they will spend $$$ dollars producing a new show. They then have models that tell them that show will retain X amount of customers, engage Y amount of existing users, and gain Z amount of new subscribers. They also know precisely what each of these customers is worth. They can calculate the monthly subscription fees, deduct their operations expenses, and have what's called a \"CLV\" or \"Customer Lifetime Value\" for each of these audiences. This is a super simple version of how they do it.",
"Just because there aren't commercials doesn't mean they don't get money from companies. There are a number of product placements in their original productions that surely generate profits beyond subscriptions. Coke in Stranger Things, for instance.",
"I was very impressed with Netflix after binge watching Marco Polo. I personally didn't think they would take on a show like this given the nature of the content at hand. A made up tale about Marco Polo's journey through Kublai Khan's court doesn't seem to pull viewers in but they went ahead and did it any ways. Seems to me was a heavy risk. The show did get cancelled after the second season but I felt it was really well done and enjoyed it very much. A shame we wont get to see how things would have played out with him taking over all of the mongol empire.",
"Well, they can measure an increase in subscribers. Let's pretend that HBO had 1,000 subscribers and had been gaining subscribers at a rate of 100/year. So at the end of they year, based on the current trend, they could expect to have roughly 1,100 subscribers. Then they make Got. At the end of that year, they have 2,000 subscribers. The only thing that really changed is that they added GoT, so it would be reasonable to come to the conclusion that GoT is responsible for HBO getting 900 subscribers. Of course, these are simplified numbers. I made them up to prove how a company can measure growth, not to provide an accurate picture of the growth in HBO subscribers due to GoT.",
"One thing a lot of the response I've seen haven't covered is the fact that HBO and Netflix didn't start out producing this huge things like Game of Thrones. They started small and both have cancelled many shows. Now they don't get the same responsiveness as other networks, they can't cancel shows mid-season so there is some higher sunk costs, but both platforms have certainly canceled shows after a season or two. They started with smaller, low budget efforts, saw the response both critically and on their bottom line and then were able to leverage that into larger and larger productions. They can still gauge success and interest in programming they just have higher initial risks as they generally have to produce a whole season at once.",
"It also needs to be noted how you look at Netflix, Showtime, HBO versus NBC or CBS, TBS, FX, etc. Even Amazon is a separate ballgame. Netflix and the like, need subscribers. They're interested in what people are actually watching. The more subscribers they have, the more profit they have. This also can include product tie-ins and placements IN the show. NBC, CBS, FX, etc. need advertisers. They're interested in bringing in advertisers, which is where they make their money. Advertisers hold the cards because they have HUUUUGE budgets, and a lot of demo information that's in sync with the content of a show. Example - People watching The Walking Dead probably like Call of Duty, and vice versa. Amazon is selling their own devices and services. Amazon shut out Apple TV from their site, you can only buy Amazon Fire devices. They want to control the entire chain. They're using the same idea(ish) that Apple had with the App/iTunes store. Use content to drive sales of devices/services. I still think Apple may get into the original content business.",
"Don't forget that each new show they add helps refine their internal model of what people will watch and how they will watch it, which is valuable data by itself. When Netflix sees that I like Archer, they can't tell if I just like animated comedies, comedies with well-known casts, office comedies, spy shows, or some combination of these things and other unknown factors. BUT, when they see that I also liked Arrested Development, they get a much better picture of what kind of show I will watch. From those two data points you can bet that I will enjoy BoJack Horseman, which, like Archer, is an animated comedy with a well-known cast that has a lot of crossover with actors of Arrested Development. If that's the case, then BoJack Horseman was a good bet for Netflix to greenlight. Where it gets more valuable for Netflix, however, is to see the statistics of *how many* people who like both Archer and Arrested Development will like BoJack or turn it off after one episode, or even give it a shot in the first place. That's how they can get a really vivid picture of what segments of an audience exist and, more importantly, how they overlap. Even if the show they add is a complete flop they can analyze why people didn't engage with it and get better and better at figuring out what their subscribers like.",
"It's also about customer retention. Keep making good tuff and customers will not leave to a competitor. There is some guessing and a lot of assuming going on of course but they're getting damn good at learning what people wanna see.",
"Why would you think they have no way to gauge how much money they earn as a result of each show? I am sure they are more sophisticated than this, but simply taking total minutes watched divided by show would give you a pretty great indication of what shows people find valuable. They could also look at the first-to-watch of new subs to find what what shows actually got people to open their account. This is SUPER high level too. I am sure they have very accurate data.",
"With specifics in HBO: HBO doesn't care, directly, if you watch. They care if you subscribe. When I was working in cable customer service, there was a cycle. In March, remind customers that HBO has Game of Thrones. The number of subs skyrocket in March. June, however, HBO sent us stuff about how to retain subs. Basically about the non-GoT stuff. When you have a property that is so hot that you have to base your entire product and marketing strategies around it, you know you have a hit.",
"Kinda easy really. Monthly subscription (s) divided by total minutes watched per account (m) times minutes in episode (t). s / m * t = revenue per episode So if I am paying $10/mo and if I watch 20 TV shows that are 40 min each in a month that is 800 minutes total: 10 / 800 * 40 = $0.50 per episode If they have 1.5 million people watching that show with an average of $0.50 per viewer per episode that is $750,000 per episode. Granted this is greatly simplified in many aspects, but you get the idea. Really, you need to do that calculation for every account and then you can find specifically what people are paying to watch. Yes this are huge calculations on millions of data points, but not dissimilar to what I do at work every day.",
"There was a really good interview with the ceos of all the major channels. Basically they called it brand investment. Saying they only make stuff they think has the chance to be a home run(hbo+netflix). URL_0",
"You are assuming they have no way of telling who is watching what. As an online digital service this is very easy for them to do. When you know what shows people are subscribing to you to watch, you know which shows are worth investment in order to keep those subscribers.",
"This was touched on in other posts but I wanted to mention it explicitly. Popular shows (and the social media, news and other buzz) are basically advertising for the network. Increasing subscriber base directly (to watch THAT show) but also just getting their name out their more (similar to a McDonalds commercial, even though we all already know about McDonalds) for future growth.",
"I have always felt Netflix relies heavily on a story to make one of their original content Productions. So when I see reviews they are either love it or hate it because they don't have a big name actor or actress to draw you in. They also don't have ridiculous special effects budgets. When someone gets really drawn into one of their shows I feel it reflects on how well it's written and how good the story is and that's why people who like them seem to really like.",
"I'm not sure Netflix produces anything. I think their \"originals\" are made by a number of different studios who for whatever reason choose not to go the traditional route and pitch their show to a TV network like NBC. My theory is that its cheaper, and perhaps less risky to pitch your show at a distributor like Netflix, rather than NBC, considering the show could fail during primetime on a major network. Then Netflix buys these shows, maybe just one season, as a way to test the waters. In my opinion, if a show flops on Netflix, then its less risk since there isn't really a \"primetime\" and multiple shows can \"air\" on Netflix at once. Where as on NBC, if the show sucks, then their numbers go down for a half hour or until a new show comes on. This is how I think it works anyway.",
"Because networks like HBO make money off of Game of Thrones even when people aren't watching it. There's the obvious connection between subscriptions gained when Game of Thrones comes on vs. when Game of Thrones isn't on, but the hidden impact of Game of Thrones is that before and after the show is on you're seeing commercials for other HBO shows. HBO's goal is to get you to see what other content they have, and hope that keeps you subscribing after Game of Thrones goes off the air. Netflix's strategy is a little different. They might not make any direct money from creating, and producing a show, but it's a notch in their library, a library you can only access through NetFlix. So while Orange is the New Black might not get a lot of people to subscribe to Netflix on it's on, if I can watch OITNB, Love, Master of None, Stranger Things, Breaking Bad reruns, etc then it sells itself. It's the opposite of the saying \"we're better than the sum of our parts\"",
"If Sense8 doesn't show you Netflix knows what people want, nothing will. That is one amazing show.",
"Another point that I haven't seen made yet is HBO and Netflix also make money on the international distribution of their shows. A show on HBO in North America will probably appear on a different channel in the U.K. or in Australia and those other channels will pay HBO a pretty nice fee for those rights.",
"Hey! A question I can actually answer. I worked for a Cable News Network for a while. Companies like HBO and AMC negotiate pay from cable providers like Comcast, AT & T, DirectTV etc.., often for multiple years or even a decade. They have a solid and consistent income stream as a result. This allows them to budget for productions like Game of Thrones or Mad Men. They also are then able to generate additional revenue streams like DVD sales. Nowadays they make money of redistributing their content to Amazon, Netflix, etc... as well as BluRay, DVD, iTunes, Vudu etc...",
"Like for any other content producer, it's impossible to say how many viewers a show will have or how many new customers it will bring in. However, you can look at past trends and see how well the show did. Stats such as how many people signed up around a series/season premier or how many people mainly only watch one show can give you an estimate of how much money that particular show earned for the provider. And if a show like house of cards is successful, Netflix will continue to producing shows as they know there is good money in quality content.",
"Lots of good info here, but if we're going ELI5 the answer is simple: they don't know. Some shows are overwhelmingly successful, and it's obvious that they were ROI positive. Others flop, and it's obvious they weren't. For the rest, they do lots of modeling, statistical analysis, merchandising and advertising experiments, conduct customer research, track viewing habits, etc. to improve their estimates. But they're still estimates. This is true for many business decisions, not just for television production. Because it's so hard to make these sorts of assessments, businesses and individuals that are good at making them have a huge advantage and tend to be very successful.",
"I think the biggest disconnect you are having is your thinking about this on normal business terms. Your thinking people make product X for Y value. They sell X for Z (Z = 1.2*Y). If you don't know how much money you get from selling X then how do you know if it covers the cost. How it is more likely to occur is one year they had A dollars in revenue. They split it some of that to growing the company and one of the ideas was send B amount of A on making our own show which might increase viewers by C. They got C by looking at the meta data they have and predicting what shows they could make and how much they could increase viewers, as another person pointed out. If C*subscription is greater than B than that is an increase in revenue.",
"The ELI5 answer is this: algorithms. Using algorithms, Netflix (for example) can figure out not only what a user watched/watches, but why they watch it, and what else they may be interested in. Netflix's algorithms are so sophisticated that they can extrapolate very precise meaning from they data they collect: they know that there is an audience of 10 million viewers who would be glued to a episode-format TV show with no commercials, a powerful male lead with a powerful female supporting role, tons of 4th wall breaks, dramatic and cerebral, and with love/hate relationships driving the plot. They \"predict\" that using their algorithms parsing through the user data and then say to themselves \"Hey, we can make a TV show like that\" and BAM you get House of Cards. That title, as an example, was a winner even before it was released. Orange is the New Black, Stranger Things, Narcos etc. were all similar in that they identified characteristics that keep an audience glued to their TV for 10+ episodes in a row, and went out to go make those shows. HBO, Amazon, & co. all do the same thing, so we end up with shows like Game of Thrones that millions of viewers absolutely adore, because it is catered specifically to the audience. If as a content creator you know your market that well, you can draft up a budget and go out and make the show/movie specifically for your audience. It's to the point now where the content companies know how much each eyeball is worth, and can mathematically model how many eyeballs will be glued to the production.",
"Some good responses down below, but lots of pure conjecture too. I'll say what nobody else is saying: that Netflix actually isn't viable based on current factors. They are spending absurd amounts of money on content right now, which can't continue forever. And their past content deals were inked at low rates which the content owners won't agree to at renewal. That's why you've seen such huge amounts of content simply disappear from Netflix, and why you've seen them lose out on content to other streamers like Hulu and Amazon. And now that they're perceived as rich and successful, the content owners will demand richer payments. Netflix has used funny accounting to claim \"profit', but at $7.99 there was only losses. They will have to pass along several rounds of price increases and hope not to lose too many customers if they are to be long-term sustainable. Another factor is that since Netflix is now being perceived as a big profitable monster, everyone will want to make them pay. Netflix free rides on ISP infrastructure. The customer only sees their $8 Netflix payment and doesn't realize the $30 mandatory portion that goes to the ISP for delivery of Netflix. One way or another, Netflix will have to begin assuming those bandwidth costs, since they gobble up huge portions of every ISP's bandwidth. Not only that, but Netflix being seen as the replacement of TV will attract hungry regulators and governments. Those parties live on the avails of cable taxes and fees, and they will find a way to replace their lost revenue with something from Netflix, and that *will* be passed on to subscribers. Additionally, Netflix future plans all assume massive foreign growth now that they've saturated their domestic market. And initial indications are that Netflix isn't as addictive in other countries. If explosive growth guesses come true, they can keep the artificially low prices going for awhile. But when growth stops, the true cost of supplying TV streams will start to kick in.",
"I work in process development, but I also spend a lot of time in quantifying ROI, etc. and I was thinking about this exact question the other day. Here's the conclusion I came to. Some comments here touch the way Netflix uses analytics to figure out what kind of shows will be popular. So they can be pretty sure that the investment will be sound in that sense. Now that they know that, I think the question becomes: How many shows and how much content should they invest in before they reach some kind of diminishing returns? That's the hard question in my opinion. I mean they will get some income from merchandise and probably a hefty sum from other platforms they rent rights to, DVDs, etc. I don't know the business so I can't say how big a slice of the investment they can cover with that. What I'm most impressed is, is that the rest is actual proper leadership. It's vision and belief in that vision. It's what separates really succesful companies from the rest. Depending on the field you can calculate things up to a degree, but sometimes you just need vision and belief when you can't mathematically figure everything out. In my opinion they are probably considering at least these points: -By creating a lot of high quality shows they don't only gain customers, but they also retain them. Retention is really important, and it doesn't only mean that they retain revenue - it also sometimes (not always!) means their competitors don't gain revenue. So it's kind of a double whammy in that sense -By producing their own shows they don't have to buy shows, which makes the investment neutral instead of giving money out to direct or indirect competition -The more shows they produce the better their analytics knowledge becomes. They can experiment, tune their algorithms etc. so the investment is not only in a single show - every show they invest in increases the quality of every show after that. So they have belief in their system and they are willing to also indirectly invest in developing the system even further A lot of this is indirect benefit, so again, it's a matter of vision and belief (strategy) and not just being really good at calculating stuff (which they probably are too).",
"Lots of people are explaining things in a general sense. I'm not sure how many people actually work in the industry or in accounting or finance. As an accountant, I'll point you directly to where you can find this information : URL_0 namely, the following disclosures in the notes to the financial statements : > For productions we capitalize costs associated with the production, including development cost and direct costs. We include these amounts in “Non-current content assets, net” on the Consolidated Balance Sheets. Participations and residuals are expensed in line with the amortization of production costs. Based on factors including historical and estimated viewing patterns, we amortize the content assets (licensed and produced) in “Cost of revenues” on the Consolidated Statements of Operations, over the shorter of each title’s contractual window of availability or estimated period of use, beginning with the month of first availability. The amortization period typically ranges from six months to five years. Revenue is top line. It's all subscriptions. They're not (currently) in the business of licensing their content elsewhere. They build good content, subscriptions increase, people maintain those subscriptions, and keep watching. That's the Revenue side of the equation. The cost side of the equation is a bit more tricky. All of those costs are not immediately expensed because of the matching prinicple in accounting. In short, they're allocating costs over the \"useful life\" of the production. Based on performance and historical views, as well as data gathered on current membership, they assign a production a \"useful life\". For example, if people are watching tons of stranger things, and their data tells them there are even more subscribers expected to watch it based on their preferences, they would expect Stranger things to get X number of viewers over Y period of time. Over Y (let's say 5 years) period of time, they take the entire costs of production (let's say $20 Million for arugment's sake) and allocate $4M of costs per year. They can't necessarily match directly subscriptions as a result of one particular show. They can however make accurate estimates of the uesful life. They can also make accurate projections of revenue based on new subscriptions, subscription retention, and expected cancellations based on historical data. This gives them all of the useful data they need to know how much one show is making them. **TL/DR** They can easily tell if it is worth producing their own shows. They cannot gauge exactly how much money one show will earn before it runs, but they can gauge exactly how many times people watched a show, how many new subcriptions watched particular shows, and how long they expect those shows to run. They can, if they want, assign those views a dollar value based on activity. The most certainly have thresholds for profitability considering both # of views produced and the cost of the show. More likely, because the data would not be worth crunching, they are keeping things at a higher strategic level decision making process - They produce a show like stranger things, they see increases in subscriptions and tons of people watching the show. The $$ is worth it. They produce a show that doesn't do well, and it's probably not worth continuing. They also probably don't want to (though I haven't read the financials aside from the except) start licensing because they could start losing subscriptions to other services that also play their hit shows."
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5nctu9 | how secure / anonymous are texting apps? How easily can cops trace it? | I was in an argument with a friend about the anonymity of texting apps / burner apps / Skype calling, and I wanted to know, say if you don't use your actual email or information, how easy is it to still trace it to the user? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It depends on the specific app. For some apps, it's not private at all. For others, it's possible for them to see who you're texting but not the contents of the text. Others are completely private. In some cases, the answer is \"it depends\". WhatsApp, for example, didn't used to be private until recently - and it's only private if everyone in a chat has a reasonably up-to-date version of the app. When you create a new conversation in WhatsApp, it will show a message saying that the chat is private (if it is)."
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5ncw13 | In the Pacific Theatre in WWII, why did Japan run out of experienced pilots but the U.S. didn't? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It is often for the same reason that Axis aces had much higher kill counts than their Allied equivalents. Japan had spent much of the lead up to the war investing heavily in pilot training programs for their carrier air forces, and the war in China gave them combat experience. When the war began, the pilots of both the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army were highly skilled and performed well against Allied pilots. However, once the war started, and these highly trained and experienced pilots and aircrews were slowly whittled away. Often, the Japanese would keep their best pilots on the front lines until they were killed, while the United States would often pull back pilots to train future pilots. Furthermore, once the war started, and resource limitations became prevalent, and the Japanese began taking losses, the Japanese couldn't give their pilots the same amount of training that their pre-war training programs gave. Not enough aviation fuel to fly training missions, etc. Moreover, the US simply had the resources to dramatically expand its pilot training programs, when Japan was basically already at its limits when the war began. Effectively, this meant that while the pre-war core of Japanese pilots was some of the best in the world, they had little ability to replace losses from this core of pilots. They couldn't spare pulling back pilots from the front lines to train new pilots, and this made their core of pilots was simply whittled away. Eventually, once this pre-war core was exhausted, there was very little left.",
"In addition to the other things mentioned, the Japanese were chronically short of fuel due to allied efforts to restrict their access to oil supplies, which meant they had to make hard decisions about how much fuel to spend on giving trainees flying time versus on actual combat operations. As a result, Japanese rookie pilots tended to have a lot less experience than a rookie in the US Air Force, which had plenty of fuel.",
"Basically, it was about their training program. Germany had the same problem. They were such a high demand for pilots in Japan and Germany that they couldn't wait for them to be properly trained. At the beginning of the game, Japan and Germany actually had the best trained pilot because they were veteran. Japan had wars against China and Germany gain some experience in Spain and in early campaign (France, Poland, etc). But as time pass, the average pilot experience for them dropped as more and more of their veteran die. While the Allies kept their average pilot better trained. This two good video about it. The first about german and the second about Japan. URL_0 URL_1",
"1) Japanese fighters (particularly the famous A6M Zero) weren't really developed during the war, such that by '42-43 they were underpowered, which meant that the Japanese were eating through their pilots (novices and veterans alike) faster than the US because their planes simply couldn't keep up with those that the Americans were using. 2) After their initial one-two punch at Pearl Harbor and Midway failed, the Japanese were essentially forced into a war of attrition that they never would have won, with the largest issue being the fact that the Japanese had very limited access to oil resources. This meant they couldn't give their trainees very much flight time before sending them off to combat, so they couldn't really accumulate newer veterans because they were horrifically inexperienced and just couldn't survive. 3) What little was left of the IJN's air wing was essentially annihilated at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, which was the largest carrier vs. carrier battle in history, and which was an overwhelming victory for the US (such that the battle was nicknamed the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. What few aircraft and pilots weren't shot down were sunk with the fleet carriers lost in the battle."
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5nd8aq | How do scientists determine what strain of influenza the flu shot will be made for each year? | Is there a certain process or looking at past years and taking a logical guess? Just curious. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Afaik the three strains chosen are the three most virulent strains recognized during the opposite hemisphere's winter i.e. six months ago.",
"It's mainly a prediction of how they've seen the virus mutate. You get an injection that has the main few they believe will be the issue. It doesn't guarantee you won't get sick though. You could always get infected by a different strain.",
"Am I wrong to think that the ramrodding of flu shots each year cause the virus to mutate more quickly? Thus compounding the problem?"
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5ndasr | Explain AMD Risen. What's the Hype? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"AMD is a company that makes processor chips, like Intel. AMD is trying to pitch their new **Ryzen** CPU as a solid competitor against Intel and their tech demo is a topic of much discussion about how it stacks up against the usually dominant Intel's current offerings.",
"For the last 3-5 years, AMD hasn't come close to Intel's single core performance. With their new Ryzen, they claim to have made a huge improvement in single core performance, going (almost) toe to toe with Intel's latest CPU's. This would mean Intel finally has a competitor again, and AMD could be offering an almost equal performance at a much lower price."
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5ndh8l | What are the rules of cricket -- or at least enough of the rules that I would know what the heck I'm watching? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's like baseball (so I'll try and use lots of baseball terms) but with five key differences to the rules: 1\\. Instead of four bases, there's only two bases. 2\\. There's a [wicket]( URL_0 ) behind each base. If the pitcher hits the wicket when he is pitching then the batter is out. 3\\. Instead of one batter starting the game, two batters start the game, one on each base. They can swap bases during a play, each swap counting as a run. They do this until one gets out. Then a new batsman comes out. 4\\. The pitcher normally tries to bounce the ball before the batter hits it, instead of throwing it at the batter. 5\\. The bases are in the middle of the field, so the batter can hit the ball in any direction: sideways, behind, or in front. So on a normal play the pitcher runs in, throws the ball, and the batter tries to hit it. (The batter can miss the ball as much as he wants as long as the ball doesn't hit the wicket. There are no strikes and he doesn't have to run if he doesn't want to). The batter tries to hit the ball far away so the two batters can swap bases, scoring runs. If the ball goes along the ground to the fence, then the batter gets 4 runs. If its a home run over the fence on the full then he gets 6 runs. The pitcher tries to either hit the wicket, get the batter to hit the ball in the air so someone can catch it, or run out the batter before he can reach a base. When 10 batters are out, the other team come on and pitches. Whichever team scores the most runs wins.",
"It varies by type but generically: One team is in bat, the other fields. The bowler bowls a set number of balls and the batters try to hit them. At then end of that set (an over) the bowler changes. When the batter hits the ball, he can choose to run. Both batters have to run, swapping ends. If they're successful, that's a run (1 point). They can get as many runs as they have time for. The bowler is aiming for the wicket - three stumps with 2 bails balanced on top. Ifcthat is knocked by the ball or the batter, he is out and another batter takes his place. If the batter hits the ball and someone catches it, he's out. If the fielders hit the wicket with the ball while the batters are in the middle of completing a run, the batter heading for that wicket is out. If the bowler ball hits the batter's leg and the umpire determines that it would otherwise have hit the wicket, the batter is out (LBW - leg before wicket). i.e. The batter may only defend the wicket with the bat. If the batter hits the ball and it crosses the boundary while still in the air, that's 6 runs scored. If it bounces or rolls across, 4 runs. An innings finishes when there are no spare batsmen, after a certain number of overs or a certain amount of time, depending on the version and the teams swap. The game is over after a certan number of overs, innings or time depending on the version. The team that scored the most runs wins. New-fangled 20-20 cricket (each team gets 1 innings of 20 overs) can last a couple of hours. A traditional test match (2 innings each, unlimited overs) can last 5 days.",
"What are some of the batting strategies. I've only seen it once or twice and both times very briefly. You don't seem to go for the long ball and how would you hit behind you ? How many fielders are there ?",
"Most people have covered the main playing differences, but I don't think any have touched on FIELDING compared to baseball. In baseball, the fielding positions are pretty much set. You have basemen, outfielders, a catcher, a shortstop and a pitcher. In cricket, the fielding positions vary greatly depending on the batsman, the bowler and the stage of the match. There's a large amount of ground to cover (roughly 160m x 160m in a circle around the batsman) and only 10 fielders to cover it. The fielding positions are set by the fielding captain, and traditionally although they might get advice from other fielders, the final decision is always up to the captain. The fielders aren't just randomly scattered around the field, they set very specific fields for the circumstances. For example, in the opening overs of a test match, the main strike fast bowler might have a field that consists of a wicketkeeper (the only fielder allowed to wear gloves), 4 slips, a gully, point, mid-off, mid-on and the other fast bowler resting at third man. While to the casual eye, this looks like they're only defending a very small portion of the field, there is a reason for the positions - early in the game the batsmen won't be taking risks, but there is an increased chance that a new hard ball might deflect off the edge of a bat behind the wicket for a catch, so the fielders are concentrated in those positions. Conversely, if you're trying to prevent the batting team from scoring runs, or fielding to a different type of bowler such as a medium-pacer or spinner, you'll have different fields set. Setting fields is a very big part of the tactics of the game, which might be new to someone who is only familiar to baseball. Some other sundry differences. - Number of players - In baseball, I believe you can use as many players as you want in a game from your roster. In cricket, 11 players are selected, with a \"12th man\" selected who can be used as a substitute fielder, and relays messages for the captain or coach. - Specialisation vs flexibility - In cricket, the 11 selected players are the only players who can bowl, bat and wicket-keep. So a team would typically select 6 batsmen, a wicketkeeper and 4 bowlers, but every player has to bat and various batsmen might bowl during the match to provide variety or relief for the main bowlers."
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5ndiri | Why does intense hunger sometimes cause nausea? That seems like the opposite of what should happen. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because your body is trying to encourage you to eat! Here are the two possibilities I've read about: According to when you eat, your body will release a hormone called Ghrelin which makes you feel like you're starving, possibly to the point of feeling nauseated. So if you normally eat every four hours and you missed a meal, your stomach starts to release ghrelin whether you need food or not because you've trained it on a schedule. Ghrelin normally stops being released after 30-60 minutes so it doesn't impact you actually getting food and that feeling of nausea will go away. It could also be low blood sugar! Your body could be releasing the hormone, Glucagon, which can cause nausea. If your diet is higher in refined carbohydrates, you're not used to burning fat because you have more sugars in your diet. If those sugars run out, your body starts to burn fat and this might cause a dip in your energy levels, headaches and nausea.",
"Gastric acid starts to fill your stomach up because there's nothing to dissolve. The acid touches the intestines and oesophagus, which is the exact same thing as puking."
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5ndmft | In the past hour, I've accidentally bitten my tongue twice now. Why does this happen? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Most likely, the wound from the first bite swells up -- inflammation is the body's reaction to injury. So that means there is now a feature if your tongue that is both unfamiliar and larger. You'll learn to compensate for it in the next few hours, most likely, giving it time to heal and for the swelling to go down."
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5ndo2s | Why do we still use Latin to name new species? | Mainly just the title. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's very descriptive as a language and isn't any countries major language any more, so there's less political tension than if it were in English , French, Italian etc. Moreover most science of the time would have been written in Latin, like Newton's Principia.",
"I think it's so no matter where you are from you know what animal or plant you're talking about. Many animals and plants have different names in different countries it would be easy for them to get confused. Using Latin the name is understandable to all scientists.",
"The current taxonomic (naming) system was created by a guy called Linnaeus. When you see the Latin written for an animal's name, it's just *\"Genus, Species,\"* instead of the whole *kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.* The *species* part of the name isn't necessarily Latin anymore. It's often just a \"Latinization\" of a place where it was discovered or the name of the person that discovered it.",
"I asked my biology professor this same question and she said the main reason is because it is essentially a \"dead\" language and will not change over time like active language terms and descriptions do.",
"As a dead language, the meaning of something named in Latin has no real risk of changing over time.",
"It is an established practice. The language is not a vernacular language of any country so confusion is not likely. The language is fairly descriptive, and the naming practices have component parts that deliver information in how they are put together.",
"It would be difficult to make sure different language speaking people were speaking of the same species without a \"lexicon\" so to say. So at some point someone (im not gonna guess, because i fear i might remember wrong and im sick rn so my brain is a bit out of order too) put it all in order and and gave every species a latin name (two names). It is easy to catalogue them this way. Edit: It was Linne.",
"Scientific names should be derived from Latin(usually) or Greek languages because they are DEAD languages i.e. their is no change in words, no new words added or old words deleted also this language has no synonyms (imp) ."
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5ndqo4 | I'm allergic to penicillin/amoxicillin. Could there be a point where giving it to me anyways and dealing with the symptoms is a better option than not? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Possibly. A common headache in medicine is seeing \"penicillin allergy\" on a chart. Research has found that only a small fraction of people who say they're allergic actually are. While we have lots of antibiotics, there are times when a penicillin or related antibiotic is crucial. Drugs with the beta-lactam structure (including penicillins, cephalosporins, and carbapenems) are just plain better at killing bacteria than other types. For run-of-the-mill infections, an antibiotic that simply stops bacteria from growing is fine. If you're critically ill from a bacterial infection, you need a drug that kills. (Historically, it's been said that ten percent of people with penicillin allergy will also react to its beta-lactam cousins, but that's likely an exaggeration.) Mostly, you can get by with alternatives to penicillin. For syphilis in pregnancy, you carefully desensitize the mother with increasing doses. In general, if you really have to give a drug someone is allergic to, you can pretreat them with steroids and antihistamines to blunt the effect.",
"Hey me too, what kind of allergic, like a rash? All I got was a pretty bad rash."
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5ndtmf | 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami quote explanation | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> Kind of ironic that I'm asking for an explanation, but aren't explanations how you understand things? There are a couple of options. He might just be spouting nonsense zen shit and just be wrong. That is an option. Or perhaps he is trying for a more subtle point. Explanations provide information, while the understanding is the responsibility of the perceiver. If you knew the information already you should be able to understand the concept already; if you can think enough to comprehend when it is explained then you could already understand the concept. Or maybe he is making the point that if you couldn't apply yourself and figure it out without help then you would be beyond help anyway.",
"That quote doesn't apply to everything. In IQ84 there was a lot of magical realism shit going on; things that couldn't necessarily be explained, but just were, and you either got it or didn't, and explaining it further wasn't going to change that. Like the second moon and what happened when she used that expressway exit. In a sense, it is like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle - at the subatomic level, the methods we use to observe things actually impact them on a quantum level. So we can know something's momentum, but not where it is, or we can know where something is, but not its momentum. Also, some things are just riddles that are only understood upon becoming enlightened; by the mind processing it differently. And explanations can't really show that. Like if I'm pointing at the moon, and you are looking at my finger, you can't truly understand the moon (my finger being the explanation). You have to see the moon for yourself."
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5ndv23 | how does my phone calculate how many flights of stairs went up? | I've seen references to things likes atmospheric pressure, but then would going up an elevator ruin my stats? (I work on the 40th floor of a building) | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Your phone can use a combination of barometer, accelerometer, and GPS to determine your change in elevation over time as well as whether it's through being lifted or by stepping. The accelerometer is key, here, because it can determine acceleration and in what direction, so it will measure a single period of acceleration until the elevator reaches a steady speed, and then constant graduation in elevation without further activity. Walking up stairs consists of several consecutive thrusts of acceleration, one for each step. The motion is distinctive and can be differentiated from an elevator. And you can't trick the thing by walking around in an elevator because your upward velocity is constant, so there's no vertical acceleration as you step about horizontally."
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5ndw3s | What neurologically is happening when a song "gets old" from hearing it too often? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This is not the answer you are looking for but it may be as simple as being able to predict the pattern of song and therefore no longer be as interesting because there are no surprises. Same thing occurs when you watch the same movie over and over.",
"Not neurological but this phenomenon in Economics is called \"diminishing marginal utility\". It means that every time you consume a good (in this case a song) it gives you a little less enjoyment every time you listen to it.",
"Your brain wants you to live, when you hear/taste/feel something it considers 'good' for you the brain rewards you and thats actually why you feel good. Next time it gets this stimulus its not quite as needed/exciting so it makes you feel slightly less good, everytime it gets less and less untill its just normal, or even bad and this makes you look for something else (another song). This system is more suited for finding food, or a mate but same process applies"
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5ne1yc | If cochlear implants communicate directly with the brain using electrical signals to fix deafness, why can we not yet use the same principle to correct blindness, or even possibly create virtual reality capable of full cognitive immersion? | Edit: Thanks for all the answers! | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The ear basically transmits information to the auditory nerve and then the brain deals with processing the information it receives. The eye has a lot more \"pre-processing\" before any information gets to the brain. Networks of neurons within the eye process information to a certain extent before this information is sent to the brain. This is a lot harder to replicate with electronics. The other issue is that the ear is a stationary thing. The eyeball moves all over the place to focus on different things, so with a \"fake eye\" we would have to hook into the nerves that go to eye muscles in order for the fake eye to know what the brain wants to look at. While vision and hearing are both very complicated processes, I would say that vision is overall a lot harder to replicate with electronics. But as others has said, research is ongoing and there has been limited success. I'm sure vision implants will be a thing one day.",
"Also cochlear implants don't \"fix\" deafness they work for some ppl but not all and even for those they do \"work\" for don't hear the way someone who was born with full hearing does. Both hearing aids and cochlear implants work best at 3 feet. They also pick up then amplify every sound there is and it can be really difficult to work out what you are suppose to be hearing."
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5ne46c | How do snowflakes get their unique shape? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The shape of snowflakes is influenced by the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere. Snowflakes form in the atmosphere when cold water droplets freeze onto dust particles. Depending on the temperature and humidity of the air where the snowflakes form, the resulting ice crystals will grow into a myriad of different shapes. Wilson Bentley (1865 – 1931) from Jericho, Vermont was the first person to capture photographs of snowflakes through the use of a microscope attached to a camera. His collection of 5,000 snowflake images introduced many people to the astounding diversity of snow crystals. [Wilson Bentley photographing a snowflake]( URL_4 ) In 1951, scientists from an organization now called the International Association of Cyrospheric Sciences (IACS) devised a classification system that characterized snowflakes into ten basic shapes. These shapes include the stellar crystals that many people are familiar with and odd snowflake forms such as capped columns. The IACS classification system is still in use today although there are other more complex classification systems as well. [1951 classification of snow crystals]( URL_1 ) Kenneth Libbrecht, Professor of Physics at the California Institute of Technology, has made extensive observations of how water molecules get incorporated into snow crystals. In his research, he has observed that the most intricate snowflake patterns are formed when there is moisture in the air. Snowflakes produced in drier conditions tend to have simpler shapes. [Effects of temperature and humidity on snowflake formation]( URL_2 ) Temperature also has a large effect on the formation of snowflakes according to Libbrecht’s research. Snowflakes formed in temperatures below – 22 degrees Celsius (- 7.6 degrees Fahrenheit) consist primarily of simple crystal plates and columns whereas snowflakes with extensive branching patterns are formed in warmer temperatures. [Up close photo of snowflake by Paula Lancaster Lupi]( URL_0 ) TL-DR: Temperature and humidity influence snowflake formation. The most intricate snowflake patterns are typically formed during warm and wet conditions. [Source]( URL_3 ) Edit: Added pictures."
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5ne67k | ; how does a computer game mimic the laws of physics. | how does a game or app on a computer or phone mimic the laws of physics, for example when I am playing pool on my phone, and i hit the cue ball with slightly more or less force, how is that translated in computer code to make the balls i hit move in a way they would in real life. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The basic physics stuff is pretty easy, just have to keep track of a few parameters. Location, Velocity, and Acceleration. For the most part interactions can be defined simply setting acceleration. For each simulation cycle start by setting acceleration to zero (nothing happens unless a force is applied). Moving through air, and don't want to simulate drag? Simply don't add anything to the acceleration. Want to include gravity? Add gravity to the acceleration so you fall it's (9.81m/s^2), got a rocket engine pointing up? Add it's acceleration to what you have (-15m/s^2). Are you moving through water and want to simulate drag? It's opposite and exponentially proportional to velocity, so add -velocity^2 \\*waterThickness to acceleration. Did you hit a brick wall? Ignore the other forces and reset acceleration to zero, did you hit a bouncy wall? Multiply the acceleration by -1. By adding up all the different accelerations for different reasons you get the net acceleration an object is under. Then calculating everything means figuring out the time step(usually 1/60th of a second) and then determining everything else just velocity=velocity+acceleration\\*timeStep; position = position+velocity\\*timeStep; In practice you have an acceleration, velocity, and position for each direction (x, y, z), all formulas are done three times for each direction. That gives you three positions (x, y, z), and you give it to the graphics/etc to show it's current position on the screen."
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5nee1g | Why do we have inflation? Is it necessary? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There is a natural inflation. Every ton of ore taken from a mine was further away than the one before. We exploit the best parts first so there is additional cost from then on. A mining company would like to raise the price of the ore as fast as the cost of extracting it increases whether the market would allow it or not. When it becomes more difficult to do something the price should rise. Oil prices are beginning to rise again. When fuel costs rise the cost of everything rises. The cost of going to work rises. If we assign the true cost of burning coal to the generating companies then the price of electricity will rise. When basic costs rise then it dries up the cost of almost everything. If wages also rise then there is another factor raising costs of goods and services. This raises income taxes which means there is more income for the government. The national debt remains the same. So there is more money available to pay off the national debt.",
"Inflation forces people to spend money by increasing the \"cost\" of holding on to money. When every dollar you have loses 1% of its value every year, it makes taking risks and investing in other things more attractive, which grows the economy's real value. For that reason, the Federal Reserve has an inflation target of 1-2% yearly - just enough to make people move money around, but not enough to make money worthless. Deflation is bad for the same reason: when people make money by sitting on cash, they don't spend it, and the real value of the economy drops.",
"URL_0 You might find these previous answers informative. (and remember to search ;P) The short version is it's *technically* not necessary, but (extremely) helpful. Low, steady inflation (~2%, though that number is debated) gives wiggle room, so that when a recession hits, we don't enter deflation (negative inflation) which is extremely damaging to economic growth, and it's also something we don't really know how to stop well. We do, however, know how to lower inflation easily. Positive inflation also spurs people to spend- if your money is worth less tomorrow, you're better off investing it into something today, which leads to economic growth overall. That means faster technology/productivity in the long run We could try to live at 0 inflation (and there are a lot of people who suggest it, because inflation seems like 'stealing'), but the strong consensus among economists (as well as the evidence we have)is that we'd just be shooting ourselves in the foot. It would give the central bank(the Fed,in the US case)/government much less room to handle a recession,and would slow economic growth in the long run- far far more than small inflation hurts. tldr: Yes, it's a necessary 'evil' that helps a lot more than it hurts. It's counter intuitive, especially when you look at cases where it got out of control before we understood it.(Weimar, Zimbabwe)"
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5nee4f | How does charcoal mellow whiskey? | I recently began drinking whiskey and many of them mention charcoal. Gentleman Jack Daniels says it filters it through charcoal twice. When I take a drink I do notice a smoother taste and less burn. So what did the charcoal do? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's very similar to a Brita water filter (they use charcoal to absorb unpleasant smelling/tasting chemicals). Activated charcoal has enormous surface area for its weight, and it's mostly made up of carbon atoms. Carbon adsorbs many materials quite well, but especially other carbon chemicals. Since most of the unpleasant chemicals found in alcohol are carbon based chemicals, charcoal works very well as a filter for distilled alcoholic beverages. It's popular among penny pinchers to get a similar effect by running cheap vodka through a Brita filter."
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5neg0u | Why do tired eyes look sunken and dark? | Like the skin under our eyes sometimes look sunken in and dark or purple when we are very tired. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you get tired, certain hormones that restrict blood, and keep you awake, like epinephrine and cortisol are reduced in your blood, and that can cause blood to accumulate in the eye area, the skin on/around your eyelids is much thinner than most of the rest of your body, so the blood can cause puffiness and show up dark in that area."
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5negnv | Please explain rutherford scattering to me! | A friend of mine has to learn this for school and neither her nor I get it :( | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If you imagine there is a big flat surface with some of those cones you use in p.e. on it spread out(these are atoms). if you roll tennis balls (electron/beta radiation) along the ground most will go straight because they will not hit the cone(atom) however a few will roll over the side of the cone and be deflected (or change path) slightly (this is because the electrons of the atoms are repelling the electrons that are being fired at them as they are both negative) and some tennis balls will hit the centre of the cone and therefore come straight back (this is if they are repelled head on). This all implies that the majority of an atom is empty space as electrons can travel through them and also that there are negatively charged particles orbiting and positive nucleus where the mass of the atom is concentrated. This disproves the plum pudding model (of electrons being scattered within the nucleus) and proves the atomic model (that there is a positive nucleus orbited by electrons.)"
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5nen3f | How street-level drugs are becoming increasingly more sophisticated. Are there real-life Walter Whites? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"don't let the name 'street drug' confuse you. these are sophisticated global pharmaceutical businesses that just happen to produce products that are illegal in some places. that changes their distribution methods and increases profit, but apart from that they are like any other multinational company"
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5nenez | How did Facebook know I might be friends with a person in another city, when I've given them almost no information? | I made my first Facebook account ever yesterday, and I used a brand new email address for it. I gave neither the email provider or Facebook any personal information beyond my name and I think my birthday. Somehow, within hours, Facebook was able to determine that I might be friends with a guy I used to know who lives in another city now. I want to reiterate, neither Facebook or the email provider has my * phone number * address * school information * employment information Also, I didn't download the Facebook app. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Perhaps that person has you in a virtual address book on their email, phone etc which they have given permission for FB to link through. You gave FB your name, it sees your name on his contact list and suggests the connection.",
"Have you accepted any friend requests or sent any friend requests to anyone? If so, it most likely recognizes mutual friends."
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5neod7 | What would it be like swimming in zero gravity? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Not in the way you're used to. In zero gravity, water will tend to pull itself into a floating sphere, unless it's completely contained, in which case you wouldn't have a surface to enter through. In a sphere of water, nothing would float, there's no up or down. Kicking and pushing will still move you through the water, but will also distort the water in unpredictable ways. There's no bottom to push off of, and staying on the surface might or might not be harder. The basic problem is that everything you're used to about how water works is based on the assumption of gravity. If those assumptions are gone, nothing will work the way it's supposed to, and it would be far to easy to end up drowning."
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5nerqh | If you want to wear two pairs of socks in cold weather, and one pair is thicker and more insulated than the other, which should you put on first to keep your feet the warmest? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You want to wear whichever is better at getting moisture away from your skin on the inside, and the insulating layer on the outside. A thin technical sock covered by a thicker wool sock is your best bet. If, however, the thinner layer is your waterproof sock, wear that on the outside... I don't know why it would be, but it's something to consider. If both socks are cotton, then it doesn't matter because they're equally worthless at long-term heat.",
"the thinner should go on first, then the thicker. The thicker one is likely wool or a material like it that will need to be able to fill space to work properly. If you were to put the thinner on outside of the thick, it could reduce the insulative(?) property of the thick sock by constricting it."
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5nexs2 | What's the complete process of the milk I buy from cow to bottle? | I just bought milk and it got me wondering if they're people just constantly milking millions of cows. | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"So Before the cow is able to produce a drop of milk they need to be semenated to become pregnant. Usually this is a job where a farmer strokes a bull for his 'milk' almost positive there was a dirty jobs episode. After the jizz is placed in the Female cow she becomes pregnant, pregnancy/birth creates the hormones that allows lactation. After the baby cow is born their are two options, if its a girl she gets sent off to go through the same cycle as her mother. Now if its a boy this is where it gets sad, they are typically boarded up and made into veal. either way they don't get to drink the milk because its for us. Now after the baby cows are out of the equation a machine is used to express the milk from the teat of the cow. After this the milk is processed in two ways: homogenization which keeps the fat from separating, and pasteurization. Pasteurization is especially key now days since most dairy cows are kept in pretty dirty conditions and the amount of fecal matter that can make its way in from dirty udders is too damn high. After all of this its placed into either a box or jug or glass bottle depending on how pretentious the milk is. Now Im not saying all dairy farms are like this, but honestly the demand for milk is too high for cows to be raised in green pastures. (Source: was in FFA, Grew up in aggie town on a farm and visited a lot of CAFOS in central California)",
"My best attempt at an ELI5. For commercial production in the US, it works a little like this: In order to give milk a cow needs to have had a baby, so the first step is to make the cow have a baby. This part is not so \"ELI5\" but - that's done via artificial insemination on as so-called [rape rack]( URL_0 ). Once the cow gives birth, the baby is separated soon after - can't have the calf drinking up the tasty profits. Girl cows become dairy cows, boy cows often get put into [veal crates]( URL_3 ) and then killed for veal while they're still very young. The mother misses their [babies very much]( URL_2 ). The mother is milked 4-5 times a day, mostly using [robots]( URL_1 )! There aren't millions of people milking the cows. Cows probably like getting milked by humans better, but that's too expensive. The robots mostly work, although sometimes the cows get hurt on their udders (mastitis), and that happens a lot more with the robots than humans. The milk is often considered not to be as good or safe (more bacterial/pus makes it in the product), but that's the only way to do it at such a big scale. Once the mother runs out of milk, she gets pregnant again like before. The process continues a few times until she's not giving much milk anymore, and then when she gets killed herself, only a few short years later, and turned into low-quality meat products (i.e. dog food). Anyway, for how the milk actually gets to you: once the milk is out of the cow it gets heated up (called pasteurization) to make sure any bad stuff gets killed. Any additives get added like extra vitamins or filtered to have less fat, and then gets put into bottles, cooled down, and shipped out to your supermarket.",
"So what's the alternative PETA or other vegan activists suggest which can reduce me daily milk consumption ?"
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5nfcux | That temporary "watermark" on our vision when we look at something bright then either look away or close our eyes? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The color-sensing cone cells in your eyes need time to \"recharge\". When light hits those cells, special molecules absorb the light and are forced to change shape, which activates the nerves in your retina. When you stare at a bright light, your cone cells are all firing, all of those molecules are getting bent, and when you close your eyes they're stuck bent for just a short while and continue activating your nerves. The longer you stare at bright light, the more cones are activated and don't have time to fix themselves.",
"When we see it's because chemicals in the retina of our eyes are broken down by light which triggers a signal to be sent to the brain that the area where the light was detected is light. When something is bright it can break down all of this chemical in an area leaving a dark spot until it can be replenished"
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5nfml3 | Why is it that certain smells may smell good to me but to others it may smell awful? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Are you talking about your own farts? Your talking about your own farts, aren't you?"
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5nfp3m | How come we can smell over people's houses and jackets and things, but we can never smell our own houses? | And don't just say because we are used to the smell. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Your gradually become acclimated to your environment and develop sensory bias. In ELI5 terms: Consider the following - you grew up in New York City and your friend in Death Valley. If you guys were to switch places, immediately your friend would complain about the snow and you would complain about the 120F weather. But back home, no issues at all. This is because your body got used to the environment it was in. You live in a specific house so your body gets used to all the smells, feels, sights, etc that were common to your house but not when it comes to a different house you are not used to. This happens to most senses people have (like me, I absolutely hate the feel of sandpaper but a wood worker would be able to touch it and maybe even distinguish the grit of what he is touching).",
"Your nose shouts constantly to the brain what it is smelling. After a point your brain gets bored of the same shouting and ignores it. New shouting it tells you about, of course. Same as your nose. Your eyes can always see your nose between them but your brain ignores this same information and doesn't tell you about it.",
"Personally I like the term coined by a Febreeze commercial - \"nose blind\". After being around a certain smells for extended lengths of time, you go nose blind to it. This is also the reason people overly apply perfume/cologne, don't know they stink etc.",
"It is due to sensory adaptation - stimuli (in this case smell) becomes less intense because of constant exposure to it. This is so that our brains can \"concentrate\" on gathering new information.",
"I can smell my house whenever I come back from a long weekend or longer. I can also smell my parents house now, but I couldn't when I lived there. As with all our senses, our brains slowly ignore things that are constant so we can notice things that are more important. (New things, moving things, etc)"
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5nfqib | How are the new Intel processors better than older ones even if they're running at the same speed and have the same number of cores? | For example, I currently have a 6600k, but I've heard that the 7600k is better even if both are running at 3.5ghz and have 4 cores. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Alright, take it like this: A processor is a laborer who's job it is to take loads of materials up to the architect and builders. Other laborers might be able to move up and down the hill just as fast as our laborer, but are less efficient with the loads that they bring. Every five minutes our laborer takes two armfuls of materials up the hill, with another third load, on his back. The loads are already pre-sorted, and grouped for efficiency. The other laborers can only carry one load at best, and cannot do operations on the load they are carrying, such as sorting or math. At the end of the day the other laborers, have made the same amount of trips up the hill, maybe even more. However, our laborer has allowed for more work to have been done. In short his work per cycle was higher. In a processor, the frequency (e.g. 3.2ghz) is the amount of cycles, or \"trips up the hill\" done in one second. 1Hz would be one \"trip up the hill.\" 3.2gHz would be 3.2x10^9Hz or 3,200,000,000 \"trips up the hill.\" Old pentium processors had a high rate of cycles, but did very little work per cycle. Cores in a processor can be viewed as our laborer being able to call in his friends to help with the work. But, these friends end up standing around, and are only useful if the architect designed the project to have multiple tasks that multiple people could work on. If four columns have to be constructed, then 4 efficient laborers could bring the materials quickly. If only one column is needed, the four laborers would not be needed. One laborer could bring the materials just as quickly as the task cannot be sub-divided, or in computer speak \"multi-threaded.\""
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5nfufj | Dreams. Why sometimes the dream is so vivid that we get that "Damn it was just a dream" feeling? | Trying to make it more clear: I had this really nice dream last night. And was kinda sad for me waking up to realize that I was in fact just dreaming. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You're going to get lots of 'experts' giving self-assured reasons why. But any question about dreams is like a dream itself - we just don't have confident answers yet because we don't really understand dreams well, or even the brain itself for that matter."
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5nfw5j | Why was a VW exec arrested while no bankers faced jail for the housing crisis? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The bankers broke no laws. The VW exec committed fraud and violated numerous other laws. You tend to only be arrested for committing crimes, not just doing bad things.",
"From the [New York Times]( URL_0 ): > Mr. Schmidt deceived American regulators “by offering reasons for the discrepancy other than the fact that VW was intentionally cheating on U.S. emissions tests, in order to allow VW to continue to sell diesel vehicles in the United States,” the affidavit said. Said a different way, Schmidt actively lied and hid information from the US government. With the bankers intimately involved with the housing crash, there wasn't enough evidence to prove criminal wrong doing on their part. Their basic defense was that the they didn't think the toxic assets were actually toxic, instead relying on the professional opinions of credit rating agencies. & nbsp; Edit: To clarify for all the replies, I personally think it's extremely likely that there was at least one banking executive that knowingly sold toxic assets. Furthermore, such people *should* be held responsibile. A big difference between the VW scandal and the housing bust is that the diffusion of responsibility was larger for the banks involved, whereas it was harder for VW.",
"The VW execs committed fraud (basically knowingly lying). Even worse, they lied to the government. If you commit fraud, it's a jailable offense. There was also a lot of proof. It's hard to accidentally design a system that just so happens to turn on during regulation testing. Can't really \"oops\" that. What the bankers did was more complex. They didn't necessarily commit fraud, rather they were being kind of \"dumb\"(or if you prefer, risky). Being dumb isn't a crime. However, if everyone is dumb, it can really screw up the market when people start realizing it was dumb, even if it wasn't intentional. It's possible that some did it knowing they were taking risk, but that's very hard to prove unless they were dumb enough to put it down on paper/email. However, big banks have compliance offices. Basically they're the private \"police\" for the bank. They're supposed to make sure people who work at the bank don't go doing dumb stuff (but again, it can be hard to find. there's a lot of people involved, and judgement calls). So what the SEC *can* do, is fine the bank itself, and say \"those guys were dumb. we can't tell (or care) if it was intentional, but you're supposed to make sure they don't take on too much risk\". In addition, when the SEC fines banks for being \"dumb\", there is a lot of subjectivity for the prosecutor and judges to decide what is actually too dumb to be reasonable. If everyone is buying something that is worthless, how do you prove that they're buying stuff that's worthless knowingly, to rip people off? Maybe they just think it's good.Everyone else is buying it,you know? It's hard! And for the most part, a lot of banks didn't intentionally do risky stuff. It was an \"oops, hey guys, we just realized we're screwed.\". It was an honest mistake. However, if enough banks all make the same mistake and go out of business, it can really mess with the rest of the economy. The bankers who were dumb enough to say \"we know this is crap but we're selling it anyway\" did go to jail. For obvious reasons this is fairly rare.",
"Bankers *did* go to jail. Here's one: URL_0 But its far easier to legally bind an auto exec to his own manufactured vehicle than it is to bind financial institutions to an industry-wide scam.",
"Many people here are commenting that Bankers did not commit any crimes. This is incorrect. A big example of this is how credit ratings agencies (S & P, Moody's, etc) knowingly rated financial instruments as very secure investments when they knew those instruments were worthless. You can read about this in a [civil lawsuit]( URL_0 ) filed by the justice department. Why was this merely a civil lawsuit, and not criminal prosecution? Quite simply, many wall street banks are \"Too big to jail.\" Eric Holder testified about this in congress when referencing the HSBC scandal: The report is available [here]( URL_1 ). > I am concerned that the size of some of these [financial] institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy. And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large . . . I think it has an inhibiting influence—[an] impact on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate.9 Looking at that, the ample evidence available to the justice department, and the lack of criminal prosecutions from the 2008 scandal, it's possible to connect the dots about what happened here.",
"You might have to give more information. Bankers didn't face jail for the housing crisis because they didn't do anything illegal.",
"The problem with most white-collar crime is that it's often very hard to prove, not only who is responsible, but even that there was a crime at all. The line between \"shady but legal\" and \"fucking criminal\" is extremely blurry. It can be as tiny a difference as \"did you know that what you said was untrue?\" If it was actually lying then it's fraud, a crime; if you simply didn't know and were bullshitting to make a sale, it's impossible to prove that there was any fraud; and if you just handed off responsibility and read the company line, it's shitty but legal. In the case of the housing crash there's a large legal difference between fraud and incompetence. When the bubble burst everyone washed their hands of responsibility, pointing the blame everywhere else. It was impossible to say who had actually \"committed fraud\" and who was just going along with the prevailing culture. That culture created a strong pressure not to look too closely at what was going on. The people selling mortgages weren't the people selling the bonds, who weren't the people rating those bonds, who weren't the people repackaging those bonds, who weren't the people gambling on those bonds, etc. People upstairs blamed the people downstairs, people downstairs blamed the people upstairs, they both blamed people outside, people outside blamed people inside.... Most of the people responsible for the crash were \"knowingly ignorant\" of the issues at hand. It's almost impossible to believe they couldn't see the risks, but they also didn't care to actually look for them. It's like covering your ears and singing when someone tells you bad news. If you didn't hear it you're not lying when you don't repeat it, but at the same time you kinda know you're wrong. After the crash we couldn't prove who had heard the bad news and lied about it and who had covered their ears and pretended everything was still okay. Both are shitty, but only one is illegal. Ultimately the issue isn't a lack of punishment after the fact. It was a lack of oversight and regulation before the fact. Oversight and regulation that haven't come and aren't likely to. Just because nobody did anything illegal doesn't mean that what they did should have been legal. And just because we can't now prove that there was anything illegal now doesn't mean that if we'd been watching more carefully we couldn't have spotted illegal behavior then. With VW it was much easier to pinpoint who was lying. That lie was what meant fraud, which meant jailtime.",
"Why is no one from Harley being arrested when they did basically the same thing: URL_0 ?",
"If you haven't already seen it, The Big Short is a pretty solid ELI5 movie about the crisis, and they have a good minute long explanation of your question at the end. It's even on Netflix, and who doesn't love seeing Steve Carell try a serious role after The Office? Edit: grammar...",
"Because they're not an American company. I'm a VW owner (of an affected diesel model), as well as an owner of a Harley Davidson. Harley paid $15 million in fines for equipping bikes with tuners classified last year as \"emissions defeat devices\" while VW paid $15 BILLION.",
"Because the government gave the banks money and said give out loans. Before it became \"We must stop predatory loans,\" it was, \"Everyone deserves a home.\" VW crossed the government by outright creating cheating software which was easily traced. So because there was more evidence and the government wasn't partially to blame it was simpler to find fault.",
"yea barney frank saying that fannie and freddie were sound is just stupid... and all the idiots and the press believed it...",
"Because politicians and lawyers were more responsible for the housing crisis than the bankers were, look up The Community Reinvestment Act and how it laid the ground work for the crisis decades earlier. It was all feel good politics defunct of any actual economic reality.",
"So, this is probably a completely different situation, but didn't Iceland jail its bankers? Is there something that they specifically did that the U.S. bankers didn't do? Are the laws on banking different enough there to hypothetically cause a problem if a U.S. banker had lived there instead?",
"VW engineered loopholes into their engine management software to override testing systems. They did this by studying the testing systems and designing their software to only run clean when it detected that the test machine was hooked up. That's against the law. They were caught when researchers at the U of West Virginia (of all places) used testers that detect emissions from moving vehicles, without being attached to the cars and triggering the loophole software. The bankers engineered loopholes into the U.S. banking laws to override common-sense business practices. They did it by making campaign contributions to agreeable politicians and making a known practice of later hiring them to cushy jobs after they'd done their time in public service. That's not against the law. Common-sense economics caught up with their financial schemes (some of which were designed by astrophysicists whose previous specialty was black holes--who knew that was a bad thing?), but the law didn't, because they'd taken the precaution of disabling it first. Moral: put your engineering bucks where it gives you the greatest ROI.",
"Better question...why weren't any politicians who created the atmosphere for the housing crisis (and worked with said bankers) thrown in jail?",
"Bankers did break fiduciary duty. They didn't get charged because the system is corrupt. Other than that, it is simply amazing reading this thread full of rationalization you actually heard from bankers themselves. Or, their politicians.",
"The reason is in your title: \"the bankers\" is a totallly nonspecific mass noun, while \"a VW exec\" is very specific to a small group of people at a particular company, in this case one person. US banks managed to avoid name recognition for their crimes by * reorganizing/bankrupting if their names became known to the public as authors of fraudulent debt, and * being so *generally and totally* corrupt that no one name became synonymous with the scandal for the public. VW, on the other hand, is in an auto-maker scandal of one. Our legal system is very good at punishing specific, identifiable people and entities, and generally public prosecutors serve political interests.",
"The bankers spent millions of dollars over decades having the laws changed. VW needs to get on their level.",
"Because bankers paid for the politicians who wrote the laws to protect them. In Murica, if you steal a 1000 dollar tv, you get 10 years in jail. If you steal 10 billion, you get a stern lecture on Live TV(C Span) by the people you paid to hold office. VW executives did not give a political donation to the right group",
"There was no political will to prosecute, because the banks wield enormous power and influence. VW has rivals with more power and influence. There is virtually no one to challenge the largest banks in the US. Clinton allowed them free reign. Bush bowed down to them as well. Obama's attorney general was an attorney for wall street banks, then as AG refused to prosecute any of them, even for tax evasion or money laundering. His law firm actually held his old office vacant for him so he could come back immediately after stepping down as AG and collect his reward for his faithful service. There are a lot of apologists in this thread making ridiculous excuses for not prosecuting individuals. Ignore them, and pay attention to what the head of the federal reserve said, instead: [ Ben Bernanke: More bankers deserved to be jailed for financial crisis]( URL_0 ) > \"It would have been my preference to have more investigation of individual action, since obviously everything what went wrong or was illegal was done by some individual, not by an abstract firm,\" Bernanke told USA Today.",
"The bankers ~~placed bribes~~**made political contributions** to legalize what they were going to do. VW didn't.",
"Defraud the goverment = not ok. Defraud the people of the government = perfectly ok. Explained it like you were 5, you're welcome! :)",
"VW is a threat to General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler because four cylinder diesel engines can potentially go half a million miles without a rebuild. This is also why the emissions standards have gradually become impossibly strict on diesel cars but remain VERY lenient on full sized pickup trucks, big rig semi trucks, dump trucks, and every type of diesel off road heavy machinery. Members of congress get campaign donations from the American large diesel engine manufacturers but not from the European and Asian small diesel engine manufacturers. Follow the money."
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5ng2oa | why did humans start cooking food? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's hard to not speculate on this one since we don't know *exactly* what happened with our ancestors but the explanation my teacher suggested was that humans, the something soon before us, kinda stumbled into it. Natural fires caused by lightning or something would've cooked carcasses which were then eaten. That was found to cause fewer illnesses and be more readily digestible than the raw alternative, so became the way things were done."
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5ng36m | How do illegal key generators work? | If i were so inclined I could download an illegal copy of windows get a key generator and activate windows. How is it possible for an illegal key generator to generate valid windows keys? Or keys in general? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The software maker typically uses a computer algorithm to generate their keys. The key it generates will follow a certain pattern that the maker knows and when you install the software and activate it using the key it checks to see if it matches that pattern (I'm ignoring online activation methods). The software doesn't have a list of valid keys since storing that information would take up a lot of space. So how do the pirated key generators work? 1. They either get their hands on a large number of legitimate keys and try and look for the pattern used to make them. Once they figure that out they can just make new ones the same way the software maker does. 2. They have analyzed the software to try and find clues to the pattern by how it checks the key that is entered. 3. They just got a hold of a number of keys legitimate keys that their keys generator just picks one at random to display. I. This case they aren't really generating new keys just giving out legitimate keys that they got a hold of. Now a days most software has some sort of online activation component that checks the key you entered with a database somewhere to see if it has in fact been issued by the software maker and if it has already been used or not. This is why many programs now also need to be 'cracked' too where the crackers try and replace the key checking code with something that will accept non-legitimate keys or to block the online check and just return a fake response from the server's saying the key is good."
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5ng3cs | How do radio stations broadcast album art? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Radio stations have extra radio bandwidth that they don't need for the audio alone. They can use this bandwidth to send additional data to your radio such as the station name, song title, artist, or I guess the album art. It's essentially sending data over a wireless internet connection, point-to-point from the station to your radio. This is not an efficient connection though due to the distance and interference, so its uses are limited. You usually need a radio capable of receiving this kind of data (and a station properly equipped) otherwise your radio doesn't know how to interpret this data and display it for you. It would just think it was noise and ignore that part of the signal. This system is also heavily regulated in how it can be used."
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5ngdkx | Coffee 'blooming' | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This process is best explained with pour over coffees, which is a manual brewing option. You have the coffee grounds dry and in the filter, and you pour the hot water over the top. First you coat all the grounds evenly and stop, not drowning them or making them float but allowing the grounds to be evenly saturated. The \"Blooming\" happens here, when bubbles rise and pop from the grounds releasing the gas from the coffee. This process is really important for the final flavor of the cup. So, the blooming coffee is releasing the gas from the grounds. Source: I'm a Barista at an independent coffee shop"
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5nggxe | Why can we recognize so many celebrities and fictional characters if the human mind is only supposed to be able to know about 200-250 people? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"So the first thing you have to understand is that it's not about 'knowing who they are'. It's about maintaining a certain level of relationship with people. The numbers were actually 100-250 initially (150 on average) and were called Dunbar numbers named after the psychologist who studied the phenomenon later other researchers, mostly anthropologists like Bernard-Killworth doubled the number but they are not as famous. This however is not the same as acquaintanceship volume; people you can recognise or name nor does this include fictional characters or celebrities either. To learn more about acquaintanceship volume click [here]( URL_2 ) To learn more about Dunbar and his numbers click [here]( URL_0 ) To understand more about how you recognise faces and recall people click [here]( URL_1 )"
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5nghyf | Why do lenders prefer people with high credit scores? Won't they make less money? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"People with high credit scores are less likely to default and leave the lender with a defaulted loan",
"People with low credit scores tend to not pay back the loan at all. It is better to go with the higher score person because you are more likely to get your money back.",
"People with higher credit scores have proven themselves trustworthy with finances over time. A lender would rather get 100% of their investment back (even quickly) than risk getting little to nothing back from an untrustworthy borrower."
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5ngms2 | How does a surface-to-air missile (SAM) distinguish hostile aircrafts from friendly aircrafts? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The typical SAM can't tell the difference between friendlies and hostiles. For systems where the SAM is guided from the ground, it's up to the operator to make that call.",
"Aircraft carry a transmitter called an IFF (interrogator friend or foe) transponder. It can transmit a code that identifies an aircraft as friendly. However, that isn't exactly the answer, be a use the missile doesn't read the IFF code. The shooter would be responsible for identifying the target, not the missile itself."
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5ngmta | When freezing stuff like vegetables or a chicken with liquid nitrogen, why does it shatter/break like glass? | Watching a video and a guy is freezing a bunch of stuff like clay and bell peppers and a chicken and they're shattering or breaking to pieces. | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Liquid nitrogen makes things extremely cold, much colder than what you experience your kitchen's freezer for instance. This makes objects transition from being flexible to being fragile at a molecular level. This is called the glass transition and it is because molecules cannot easily slip and slide on a microscopic scale bonds cannot break and reform, and thus cracks will start and quickly spread, causing the material to become brittle and break. Most things we experience never get that cold but liquid nitrogen reaches temps in the negative triple digits and most materials have glass transition temps that are higher than that (rubber for example has a glass transition temp of -95 degree F so liquid nitrogen would make it shatter."
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5ngpc0 | Is there a reason for the Alphabet to be in order? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"who says it is in order? not like there is a sequential numerology to it, we've since gotten good at numbering the letters to assign positions to it, and thats helpful for many things, but still does not prove its in order. all we know is that the order is more or less, unchanged since the first records of the alphabet dating back 3000 years. there have been a few order changes and a few more additions. but all things considered, few things can claim to be so consistent over so many years. fun gif URL_0 Or hell, maybe those damn phoenicians just liked the way the song rhymed.",
"Not really. It's sort of loosely based on the Greek alphabet. That's actually where the word alphabet comes from (the first two Greek letters are Alpha and Beta).",
"It has to be in some order for many reasons, but it's mostly arbitrary. It's based on previous alphabets, which in turn are based on those that came before, but go back far enough and someone just made it up.",
"Organization. Being able to put any set of things in an understandable order no matter how different they are."
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5ngppn | Why do humans have to have a "side of the bed" to sleep comfortably? | Is it a connection to what your dominant side is or something else? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Habit, mostly. The same reason people need to shower in the morning/evening, or need their tea with milk. There's often no reason to change that habit, but have you ever heard of a couple breaking up because both wanted to sleep on the left side?"
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5ngsnl | Why is it when we are younger we like sweeter food and can eat large quantities of them. But as adults we tend to like more fuller and bitter flavors, and sweeter foods can sometimes be "too rich"? | Edit: Thanks for all the responses everyone! | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are a few theories. One is that children have less developed palates. Adults are able to appreciate the subtle and savory flavors of bitter foods. Kids dislike them because they can't taste the entire flavor profile, opting for simpler sweet foods. For adults, those sweet foods are overwhelming because they lack subtly. Another theory is that children crave sweets more because the body craves sugar when it's younger, at the point in development when humans need loads of diverse sugars. ^(Source: I read an article online a while ago, and everything on the internet is true, right?)",
"[Article worth reading about this]( URL_0 ) Scientific evidence shows that children not only have a stronger preference for sugar than adults – but that sweet-tooth is hardwired from Day One. \"We know that the newborn can detect sweet and will actually prefer sweeter solutions to less sweet ones. The basic biology of the child is that they don't have to learn to like sweet or salt. It's there from before birth,\" explains Julie Mennella of the Monell Chemical Senses Center. Unlike adults, who often find overly sugary things unpleasant, Mennella says kids are actually living in different sensory worlds than adults when it comes to basic tastes. \"They prefer much more intense sweetness and saltiness than the adult, and it doesn't decrease until late adolescence. And we have some evidence they may be more sensitive to bitter taste,\" Mennella says. A reason for this may be that a preference for sweet, caloric substances during rapid growth may have given children as an evolutionary advantage when calories were scarce. That notion is supported by the fact that sugar doesn't just taste good to children -– it actually makes them feel good, too. Mennella's research has shown that sugar is a natural pain reliever in children, and many hospitals even put a sweet-tasting liquid in a baby's mouth during circumcisions or heel stick procedures to help lessen the pain. When researchers gave adults and children water mixed with various amounts of sugar, adults preferred sugar concentrations similar to that of a can of soda, while finding higher concentrations too sweet. By comparison, children preferred at least twice that concentration, and younger children had virtually no limit. \"You can keep putting sugar in to the point where you can't dissolve it in the water anymore and they still like it,\" says Sue Coldwell, a researcher at the University of Washington who has studied kids and sweets. But there seems to be an age limit on the super-sized sugar preference. Coldwell and her colleagues suspected that sugar preferences changed during adolescence. They checked a bunch of indicators, like body image and hormones, and then they checked bone growth. They gave the sugar-water test to adolescents while simultaneously measuring a marker of bone growth in their urine. What they found was that kids who were still growing preferred sweets. Those whose growth had already stopped –- around age 15 or 16 — had taste preferences similar to adults. Exactly how this all works is still somewhat of a mystery, but Coldwell says that one important clue lies in the discovery that growing bones actually secrete hormones that can influence metabolism. Other well-known metabolic hormones like leptin and insulin have been shown to act on brain areas that control cravings and appetites, and even directly bind to the tongue, where they affect the preference for sweet tastes. Coldwell suspects that hormones from growing bones may be doing the same thing. In other words, it's not your kid's fault he raided the cookie jar – the hormones from his growing bones made him do it. \"I don't know for sure, but I am very suspicious that the bones are somehow telling either the brain or the tongue that there is energy needed for their growth and signaling for that preference to increase,\" says Coldwell. That's not to say a kid can't overdo it. In a modern world of calorie overload and childhood obesity, cravings for sugar are no longer the evolutionary advantage they once might have once been. But if the goal is to get children to reduce their intake of sugar, researchers say understanding the biology behind their cravings is the first step. TL:DR - They think we're genetically programmed to want sugar and that our intense childhood craving for sugar stops when our bones are finished growing.",
"The real question I have is why I, 35, haven't apparently discovered this. There are some sickeningly sweet artificial candies I don't like, but I'm a 2.5 spoons of sugar in my coffee kind of guy. It frankly *baffles* my mind that people not only drink but *choose* to drink dry red wines and pay a lot of money for the privilege. Same with most beers, which are bitter and utterly irredeemable to me. I once went to a wine tasting with several friends my age, and we all got flights of red wines. There was one that all of them were cooing on about how good it was, whereas to me it tasted just as bitter and tongue-numbing as the other reds. I honest-to-God thought they were fucking with me. One of those same friends frequently can't stand sweet drinks I like, such as a vanilla cream soda or similar. So strange to me.",
"I'm only 20 but have definitely began to experience this. Hopefully someone has some answers!",
"In nature the most common sweet foods are fruits, which evolved to be sweet so animals eat them and spread seeds. Most bitter flavors in our food are produced by alkaloids, many of which are poisonous. Therefore sweet foods are generally safer than bitter foods, because plants don't want to poison the animals that help them propagate. Since children are smaller than adults and therefore can be poisoned more easily it makes sense for them to avoid bitter foods and be drawn to sweeter and therefore safer foods chemically.",
"It's a evolutionary thing. In the wild, bitter foods are often poisonous. Because children are often too young to have learned how to tell dangerous from safe plants, they rely on the taste of the plant. This is why they often highly prefer sweet foods",
"I heard it was because as a child the sensory stuff that tastes when things are “too sweet” hasnt developed yet, and wont until early adulthood.",
"You crave sugar as a kid because of bone growth URL_0"
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5nh0g1 | What happens when our lips are chapped? | More specifically, what causes that and why does licking them make your lips worse? EDIT: Thanks so much for so many responses. This place is always helpful. :) | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The external covering of your lips is essentially a thin layer of skin. Like all skin, it can get dry. Poor hydration, sun exposure, and cold weather can all dry out and irritate your skin, lips included. When you lick your lips, you're rubbing your tongue over that skin and wearing it down through contact and saliva. Do that repeatedly, and your lips will dry out even more since saliva is not moisturizing, but rather is full of enzymes meant to break down food. Stay hydrated and keep chapstick on hand to prevent chapped lips and stay comfortable! :) EDIT: I realize I made it sound as if saliva can break down skin. It can't. My point was more to note that saliva's purpose is not skin moisturization, but something else entirely. When you lick your lips, you make them wet, but it evaporates quickly. Through evaporation, even more moisture is pulled out of your lips. Don't lick your lips!",
"The skin on your lips lacks sebaceous glands, which means unlike most of your skin it can't keep itself lubricated with natural oils. **Edit** Sebaceous glands are the little oil producing 'pouches' that are at the base of each individual hair inside the hair follicle. The oil comes out of your pores and is there to keep your hair and skin lubricated, conditioned, pliable, and healthy. **Edit 2** Several folks have brought up fordyce spots. These *are* a sort of sebaceous gland associated with the lips, but they're only along the edge of the lips, or what is known as the \"vermilion border\" (these harmless spots are also found on the penis, scrotum, and labia). I am not a doctor but it doesn't seem like they're *as* well equipped to keep lips from chapping in many conditions, and the enzymes from our own saliva can override any benefit they may try to contribute if you lick your lips too much. The rest of the lips are high and dry, so to speak. **Edit 3** Some fellas with beards have mentioned not having as much trouble with chapped lips since growing said beard. I'd never even considered this until now (girl here, can't beard) but I would believe that the oils from your beard would make it to your lips and keep them moisturized and happy. Good discussion, everyone! And thanks for keeping me fact-checking. :)",
"Follow up question: why do (most) chapstick brands create a dependency that results in my lips becoming even more disgustingly chapped than they were before? I have not tried all brands, but I haven't ever had a brand that didn't cause this problem. Currently I use Aquaphor with varying results.",
"The skin on your lips is thin and sensitive. It prone to drying out when you're dehydrated or when it's licked. The reason licking your lips causes chapping is because your saliva contains digestive enzymes that are designed to break down food and the acidity of saliva can really dry out your lips over time (I chronically lip my lips and I always have dry lips!). The best way to make sure your lips aren't dry is by drinking plenty of water, moisturizing them, either with a lip balm or something like coconut oil, and stop licking them! --- **EDIT:** You well-researched bitches making me look dumb, STOP IT! I now understand that saliva isn't acidic! I just assumed it was because of the digestive enzymes, I made the assumption it was acidic. The more ya know, I guess! Thanks for commenting. :*",
"Lips get chapped when they become dehydrated, or sun burnt, or go through too many hot/cold cycles (anecdotal). As has been noted, licking your lips exacerbates the problem, while a good lip balm helps a great deal. What has not been noted yet, that I have seen, is that a diet high in omega-3 containing fish, or omega 3/fish oil supplements seem to help a noticeably when taken in sufficient quantity - at least 1200mg per day. I have always had a problem with chapped lips during the winter, but over the past year, I've been very regular in using omega 3 supplements, and my lips have, thus far, done wonderfully during this winter season. Gone from using lip balm 2-3x a day in past winters to less than once a week this winter. Worth a try and tons of other health benefits too! Source: I work for a fish oil producing company.* URL_0 *That is a lie.",
"How do you keep chapstick for more than 24 hours with out losing it?",
"Follow up question, why does the skin of the lips sometimes seem to basically detach itself with water, say, after a shower? If you remove it, it doesn't hurt and there's perfectly normal skin underneath, so it makes it seem like it isn't replaced naturally like most of our skin.",
"My understanding is that mouth breathing is a huge part of this. When your lips are slightly parted all the time, saliva is constantly dribbling out of your mouth, causing your tongue to swing into action subconsciously and lick. As many people have already stated, licking makes the chapping worse. I've always thought it was because licking removes the few oils that are actually on the lips, making them dry out more. Just like excessive hand washing leads to chapped hands, because oils are being removed. Also, mouth breathing pulls dry air over your lips repeatedly, which can't help. In the winter, your nose is more likely to be stuffed, so you're more likely to mouth breath. Next time you see someone addicted to lip balm or with chapped lips, watch their mouth for a while. They're probably a mouth breather. Anyway, I haven't used lip balm in 20 years, and here's my recommendation: 1. Nose breathe exclusively. Keep that mouth closed, keep your tongue suctioned against the top of your mouth (google tongue posture for more info). 2. NEVER lick your lips. 3. (Maybe?) Eat a diet higher in saturated animal fat.",
"Vaseline (petroleum jelly) works amazingly well. Slather it on before bed and in the morning lips are soft and moisturised Edit: corrected \"lather\" to \"slather\".",
"Follow up question: If I lick my lips then rub my finger on them to get the rough skin off to now have the underskin as the top layer, why is it that they don't get chapped anymore? Is it because that layer isn't as damaged?",
"Follow up question, why does it seem as if some people don't ever get chapped lips or never use chapstick at all when my lips will look awful and bleed if I stop using chapstick?",
"Pro Tip: When its really cold out don't breathe through your mouth if you are not wearing chapstick or other protection. Breathe through your nose. Its cool to see your breath but your lips will chap up in no time.",
"Late but if anyone knows: Every time I get a mouth wound that lasts a week or two, my lips goes flaked like that. Why? In addition, I have a nasty tendency to pull that off, which makes the kids worse, as well as contribute to even more flaking. So, sometimes a quarter square centimeter of lip is ripped off...",
"Follow up question. If someone had a bad habit of picking at the skin of ones lips and ....peeling them and it sometimes bleeds.....Does that do anything bad? Will it give the person cancer?",
"You're dehydrated, that's it. Also if your dog has a dry nose or licking it you need to give it water. Dogs don't have lips so there is no indicator other than the nose.",
"Why is it whenever I use a chapstick (brand new one not already used) most times it will make my cold sores come out shortly after?",
"Read this before bed last night. Thought last night that I hadn't gotten chapped lips in a while and woke up this morning with it. Few hours later and now it's bleeding too."
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5nh5cp | Why do we find it hard to breathe when facing towards a strong wind? | Was walking to school today, was facefirst in the middle of a strong wind. Found it hard ish to breathe. Why does this happen? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It may sound odd, but what is happening when you take a breath is your diaphragm contracts, which causes your lungs to swell and increase in size. This then causes *less* pressure inside your lungs than in the air outside, so air rushes in with a breath as your lungs fill with air. A property of air is that as the velocity (speed) of the air increases, air pressure decreases. Likewise as velocity of air decreases, the air pressure increases. When a gust of wind hits you in the face, suddenly there is less pressure *outside* of your lungs because the air is moving faster with the wind. When you turn your back on the wind to create a still pocket off air, your diaphragm can then decrease the pressure and allow you to take a breath."
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5nh9ax | Why do large, established companies like Coca-Cola outsource their branding to boutique firms? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Advertising is something that is generally outsourced to companies who specialize in it. It is very specialized, they are the experts at it, and they are the ones who do it. Sometimes they will keep some of the analytics in house, but generally at a minimum the creative and such is outsourced to the \"experts\" (but they may outsource parts (or all) of the analytics too!) Its very uncommon for large or even smaller companies to have their in-house advertising department, or at least one that could hold their own against a company who's business is advertising. But one last thing -- remember \"advertising\" is not the same as \"marketing\". And companies generally keep marketing completely inhouse"
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5nhc0e | Part Time Jobs | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The limitations on hours are dependent on your age and the state you live in, but at 17 you are almost certainly not going to be restricted at all (except, of course, that if you're still in school you have to go to school). For what it's worth, know that the laws limiting hours minors can work is for their protection, so that they cannot be *forced* to work at the expense of the schooling and childhood. Your school schedule is, of course, immutable. You can't not go to school! Employers will have to set your work schedule around that. You can also *request* other days or times to stay free, but know that the more demands you have to make on a potential employer, the less likely they are going to be to hire you. They want people with a lot of availability, not someone whose schedule is super limited. Whether or not they hire you is up to them, and whether or not you're willing to be flexible with your schedule is up to you. Somewhere in the middle is where you both compromise, hopefully. Also know that some types of jobs *require* a more flexible schedule than others, or will require longer shifts that your schedule can't accommodate. So before you even bother applying, it's not a bad idea to ask someone at that job (preferably a manager) what the hours are like and consider whether or not that job will work with your schedule. Yes, most jobs want you to have *some* amount of experience, but many jobs will hire people and train them if it's worth it. Being a grocery store bagger doesn't take a lot of training, and cashier takes marginally more, so they are more willing to hire younger, inexperienced people. The trade off is that they won't pay you much, either. That's how getting a *career* generally goes: work for a job that doesn't pay you much but rewards you with experience. You then move on to a better-paying job that requires more experience, which you gained at your first job; or, you move up in the same company as you gain experience there and they give you more responsibility. As you're building your resume, know that \"experience\" means a lot of things, and if you show *potential* they'll be willing to train you. You should present yourself as someone who learns quickly and works hard. They are comparing how much it will cost to train you with how much you will be worth after training - show them you will be worth training. On your resume, that means showing extra-curricular activities and leadership, decent grades, and letters from authorities like teachers and coaches. If you can show that you are a capable learner and hard worker in what you *have* done (mostly school), you are demonstrating that you will be a great employee even when doing tasks you have *not* yet done. Pay depends on the job and your employer. Many places are going more and more to paperless pay stubs, which means direct-deposit to a bank account. IIRC, they are required by law to have alternative options for people who do not have a bank account, but...you're 17, you need to go get a bank account. Now is a good time. They may still give you a paper check that you have to deposit. Although you are *very unlikely* to get this sort of job, *some* jobs pay you straight up with cash, or the customer or client you're dealing with pays you directly, and it's up to you to declare all the relevant taxes. That is incredibly unlikely to be the case for you. That said, many jobs also involve a lot of tips, which are usually cash, and it *is* up to you to declare those tips on your taxes (doing your taxes is another ELI5, but mostly your employer will probably handle most of that except for filing your taxes in April and whatnot...but again, different ELI5; side note, you can usually get away with not declaring *all* of your cash tips, but...the IRS pays attention to that shit, so try that at your own risk). How often you get paid will depend on your employer, but it will probably be every other week, maybe every week, possibly (but not probably) once a month. Wisdom for the future: start saving money now. Get into the habit. Your instinct may be to treat all of your paycheck as spending money, but that's not a great way to treat your money. I'd set aside *at least* one third of your paycheck just to save it for when you *need* it. As an adult, you'll likely try to budget one third of your paycheck for living expenses (food, rent/mortgage, insurance, etc.), one third on \"spending money\" (your car, going out to eat, new phone, etc.), and one third saving for \"retirement/[getting cancer]( URL_2 )\". You don't have to worry about all that yet (I hope!) but it's a good idea to start getting into that mindset. Absolutely spend some money on just random awesome stuff to reward yourself for working hard! But save some, too, for the future, even if it's just the future of two months from now when you want a new game console or whatever. Also wise, [**learn your rights as an employee**]( URL_1 )! Seriously! You don't need to have a textbook understanding of everything, but read up on your federal rights and your state rights, and having a general idea of OSHA guidelines is also not a bad idea. Off the top of my head: * You cannot be made to work off the clock. If you are hourly, you should be on the clock any time you are expected to be working. If an employer gives you a hard time about doing \"little things\" after you're clocked out or before you're clocked in, they are stealing from you. Your time is valuable, even if your time is only worth minimum wage. (Flip side: if you're on the clock, you have sold your time and it no longer belongs to you, it belongs to your employer. Be a good employee, work when you're being paid to work.) * Not only is it illegal for your employer to punish you for discussing your pay with other employees, it's illegal for them to even *suggest* that you shouldn't do it. No one is obligated to discuss *their* pay with you, it's generally considered rude to ask how much someone makes (which is stupid, but hey it's the world we're in), but you can *never* be punished by your employer for talking about it with others. * You cannot be required to handle human waste or fluids (blood, feces, etc.) without proper safety equipment - that does not just mean rubber gloves, it means basically a hazmat suit. That shit (literally) is dangerous. If there's poo where it doesn't belong and your employer tells you to clean it up, unless they give you a hazmat suit you don't have to do it. * You are legally required to get breaks (depending on the length of your shift). It depends on your state, though. Look into it. If they start eroding away your break, asking you to clock back in a little early, it's probably not a good job. Of course, sometimes you do absolutely have obligations, but your break time is yours, not theirs. If they start taking that away from you, they are, again, stealing your time and probably breaking the law (probably - look it up to be sure). Final words of wisdom: pick your battles. You *will* get an employer who gets you to spend a few minutes cleaning up after you clock out every once and a while. You *will* get an employer that doesn't want you talking about your pay. And as much as they can't *legally* punish you or fire you, they can make your life difficult in a lot of ways. Don't make an ass of yourself, keep your head down, and know when you need to stand up for your rights and when it genuinely isn't worth it. Is potentially losing your job worth fighting for that extra dollar a week that you worked off the clock? Probably not. Incidentally, check and see if you're in a [right-to-work]( URL_0 ) state because if you are, employers have a lot more power to fire you so tread carefully. Good luck out there!"
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5nhe1w | How do we know than an earthquake is "long over due" | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm not an expert at all, but this is what I've learned from high-school geography- when two tectonic plates, like the north american plate and the pacific plate, slide against each other at a transform fault line, they don't do it really really slowly, like plates which move apart or towards each other. The plates (or at least at the fault line) slowly build up force, until suddenly the plates can't take it anymore and they snap past each other, tens of metres at a time. A good metaphor is this- take chunk of polystyrene and break it in half. Put the halves back togehter, and push one forwards and one backwards, so they're sliding against each other. You'll notice it won't slide easily and instead it takes a certain amount of force to get each \"plate\" moving against the other, and when it does move, it moves in one big leap. Geologists can look at the data they have (how long it's been since the last earthquake, how quickly each plate is moving) and predict when the tectonic plates will release all of that built up force. Naturally they can't be 100% certain, so they'd make an estimate, and when that estimate is over, they would call the earthquake \"long over due\". Edit: rip it got removed. Edit 2: yay"
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5nhefg | Why is it harder to keep your balance you close our eyes? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are 3 systems involved in maintaining balance. * Vestibular (Inside your ear there's fluid which kind of acts like a bubble level. Telling you when you're not leveled in a direction) * Somatosensory (A bunch of sensors in the skin, tendons, ligaments, and muscles which tells the brain what's going on. Imagine the feeling when you feel your foot about to slip off of something. The sensors are telling the body somethings about to move) * Visual (Your eyes look at the world around you and figure out where you are in relation to everything else.) Visual is the most important component in this system. Which is the reason it's hard to balance when you close your eyes. Without vision, you rely on somatosensory and vestibular systems to balance. Which is enough to balance, however they're usually not as well trained, and thus your ability to balance decreases. [Here's a video showing how important vision is for balance, especially in children!] ( URL_0 )"
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5nhhu2 | Why is punching through a wall or smashing a glass object so much more satisfying than squeezing something like a stress ball when you're angry? | Does it have anything to do with having a sense of accomplishment? The stress ball isn't broken, so you don't see a result. Is there something about the brain that makes having a result more satisfying? Am I even remotely close to being on the right track with this theory? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When we're angry and/or stressed, it's often because we feel as though we don't have control over our circumstances. So by physically destroying inanimate objects, we are exerting control of our own over those items, reminding ourselves that we do have power and capability, even if that power to smash something fragile doesn't actually fix the original problem."
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5nhhy2 | How does the Crocodile Dentist toy work? | [Video ]( URL_1 ) [Amazon]( URL_0 ) You open the crocodile mouth and press his teeth. If you press the sore one, there only one and it is randomized each time the mouth open, he'll bite. The toy doesn't use any battery, so it must be fully mechanical. I wonder how the sore tooth is randomized? I tried to record the sequence, but it doesn't seem to have a predetermined order. Can someone explain this to me? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"My guess is there is a disk directly below the disk that has holes for safe teeth to get pushed down through. The triggering tooth pushes the disk down and triggers the jaw to close. The disk gets spun every time you open the jaws and is randomized by that spinning.",
"It's been a while since I researched this, so my facts may be a little fuzzy, but like /u/digitaluddite said it uses a disk. Opening the jaw loads a spring for energy storage, and pressing the trigger tooth releases the energy, causing the disk to spin and the jaw to close. The disk has an inaccurate breaking mechanism that causes it to stop at a new random location."
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5nhjyy | Why are some people's sneezes really violent while others are barely audible. | I am referring to the natural way people sneeze, regardless of social conditioning. I for example, sneeze very violently and loudly no matter how much I try to control it. Other people I know are able to sneeze soft and quietly. What is it that accounts for these differences? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There's certainly a combination of variables. Social circumstances can affect how obnoxious we are willing to be with our sneezing, or coughing. Either trying to be obnoxious or trying to be stealthier and more controlled. Then there's the threshold or subjective sensations your body feels when it wants to sneeze. We all feel subjective amounts of tickling on our bodies, the same is true of what our nose can take before it has to release itself. Stuffy nose, runny nose, foreign particles caught in nose hairs, etc. All affect what has to be discharged and how aggressively. I have read that muting sneezes is bad for you because it's very easy to rupture blood vessels, especially in your eyes. Definitely not a good idea.",
"Your questions refers to a violent sneeze and a loud sneeze, which are two different things. Others have discussed the reason for a violent sneeze. However, the noise we make when sneezing is entirely social. We mimic what other peoples sneezes sound like, or at least what we think it should sound like. More than likely if your parents yell loudly when sneezing, you probably do too. So what sound does a deaf person make when sneezing? Nothing. They don't make a sound. URL_0 Edit to add a link.",
"What I don't understand is why some people have to yell/scream when sneezing. I get the large volume of air movement, but what does that have to do with your vocal cords?? Can't we just inhale deeply and sneeze?",
"It's learned behaviour. Listen to deaf people sneeze sometime, they're quiet as fuck. People who sneeze obnoxiously loudly do it because they've learned to sneeze obnoxiously loudly, just like people who fart really loudly on purpose.",
"I'll take a stab at it. It's partly due to biology, like the volume in one's lungs, one's nasal cavity, how strongly one experiences the itchy feeling of a sneeze, etc... but more than any other thing, how you sneeze is due to social conditioning. If you were conditioned to minimize your sneezes into the most timid, silent things as a kid, then that's probably how you are as an adult. If you thought it was cute to do a little hiccup giggle thing as you cover your face and flutter your eyes, or manly to roar and blink furiously, or < whatever > to sneeze a certain way as a kid, then you probably sneeze that way as an adult. And that makes up the biggest difference for why some people sneeze violently and others seem hardly effected by a sneeze."
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5nhvq5 | If I lose 10 lbs, how does it leave my body? | I'm sure it varies based on why I'm losing the weight, but assume basic diet and exercise. What percentage goes to poo, urine, sweat, exhaling, something else? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"when you work out, your body breaths in more oxygen, but you exhale C02. Fat loss comes from you exhaling c02. Fat is broken down into C02 when you are working out.",
"Let's clear up a few things. First, we're not converting mass to energy. That's E=MC^2. For every gram of mass you converted, you'd be looking at (1 gram) * (3*10^8)^2 or around 9 * 10^13 joules. I like metric, but I like TNT better. So that's the rough equivalent of 21.5 kilotons (21,000 tons) of TNT. But reactions aren't perfect. We're happy if we get a small fraction of matter conversion in a warhead designed to take advantage of this phenomenon. But, even if we're only operating at 1/1,000,000th efficiency, we run in to a couple of problems. First, we're converting matter at a 1/1,000,000 efficiency (that means for every gram that we burn, we're actually only losing a microgram of mass). But the real problem is money. Every time we lose a couple of grams, we have to buy a new expensive scale (one that accurately measures in grams), AND probably re-furnish the bathroom, if not the house. (I need Mr. Munroe to draw a stick figure here, with explosive flatus or something). ============================== Here's the real deal, if you want to skip the fun above it ============================== Fat people aren't fat, we're just incredibly efficient at socking away chemical energy. I like this explanation because efficient sounds productive, and productive sounds like I'm getting things done, and that implies that I'm too busy to get to the gym and it's just more productive for me to sit here and be efficient. We (humans and most other organisms that read here) get most of our energy from burning glucose. We gotta get stuff down to glucose (sugar) before we enter in to the big energy cycle. For an indepth look: URL_0 URL_1 For a quick look (less digression, I promise, maybe): So, get to this point understanding that we're going to throw \"boxes\" of glucose at our citric acid cycle. We want to \"unpack\" it a bit, but that's essentially how it works. The body takes boxes of glucose, and \"tapes\" them together to form fat. Fat actually takes some energy to make (taping them together and boxing them), and actually takes some energy to \"unpack\". The \"Tape\" and \"boxes\" that are holding the glucose together are essentially made of carbon dioxide and water. It takes a little bit to make it, there is energy in the bonds between all of the parts, and it takes a little bit of energy to break those bonds as well. But, while fat is a very chemically efficient method of storage, it is not volumetrically efficient. Fat cells have a large water content, and fat molecules aren't compact and space efficient. And here's the rub: Typically, our body is pretty lazy. When we want to burn energy, it's easy to snag a passing box of glucose and throw it at the citric acid cycle. Nobody wants to go to the storage unit and unpack the glucose that's hiding in the fat boxes. As long as we have easy to use glucose (or anything that's easier than going to the storage unit), we're not going to unpack things. So, part of dieting is denying the body easy access to free glucose, so that it is forced to send \"someone\" to unpack the fat storage, and start burning that glucose. Looking for a percentage of where it goes is difficult. I will bet that there were some studies using deuterium tagged organic molecules, looking to see where and in what concentration the body excreted them (too lazy... I mean, efficient... to look that up), but that's also an oversimplification of the process. Much of it is, in fact, water, simply because large amounts of fat molecules need large amounts of water in the cell with them (cells are mostly water). If that doesn't work for you, I can probably do a Lego description. I'm not home for a couple of days, so no visuals."
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5nhwp9 | Its January in Pennsylvania. Why are there birds chirping? Didn't they all fly south? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"No, only migratory birds fly south, and not all birds are migratory. Some stay over the winter."
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5nhxea | What is the difference between Universities and Colleges? | They are just both basically schools offering bachelor's degree, right? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It depends on the country, and even then the definitions vary depending on context. In the UK, a university is a conglomeration of colleges (e.g. Oxford is comprised of 38 colleges). In America, they're pretty much synonymous, with college being more slang but university being a more formal word. In Australia, college refers to a large (and often old-fashioned) student residential hall that is affiliated with a university. College can also refer to a secondary school (grades 7-12ish, depending of the state).",
"In America, usually we say a university is made of multiple colleges. For example, a liberal arts college will grant a collection of bachelors degrees, and maybe higher degrees, in the arts, social sciences, etc. A large university will probably have a College of Liberal Arts but also have a College of Engineering, College of Business, etc that each grant their own bachelors degrees and probably also have Masters and PhD programs. So for my undergrad I went to UC Davis but my major was in the College of Arts and Sciences. In order to graduate I had to meet requirements set by both the University and College."
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5nigf4 | Why do web pages viewed on mobile devices keep changing layout as they load, and then change again just as you try to tap a link after it seems like they were finished loading? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Main reason is asymetric loading of elements and bad programming. In detail: The main goal of a mobile page is to load as fast as possible. There are certain methods to achieve this. The two most important (for your question) are: 1) Load visible stuff first: The first things that will be loaded are things you see when you open the web page. Everything \"below the fold\" (below the point where you need to scroll to see it) will be loaded at a later point. 2) Load bigger elements later: Bigger elements, such as images, will be loaded last. So your initial page is loaded fast, and the rest comes at a later point. Now to your problem with the layout changes: Poor programming causes this. Normally you would place blank placeholders for big elements like images. For example: If you, as a programmer, know, that there is an image that is 500x500 pixel, you will reserve this 500x500 spot with a blank white space. So when the image loads (after the initial loading of the page) you can fill this blank space with the image, without destroying the layout. OR you could use two different image qualities. Like one really low quality (and low filesize) one that loads when you open the page (in case the image is in your \"initial load view\") and when this initial load is over, you use your \"normal\" bigger size image to replace the old one. Really sorry, for a non native speaker its kinda hard to explain this :( I hope you get my point."
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5nih4q | Why aren't there psychotherapists who advertise themselves as working after 5pm? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Also you should talk to your companies HR about taking a leave for medical reasons. They can't fire you. They might even help you."
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5niksj | What is the difference between Standard and Express shipping? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Standard shipping (slow): Multiple orders are put inside of a container and the container's only shipped when it's full. Express shipping (fast): Orders are shipped independently, and so don't depend on others. Logistic may differ from company to company, but that's the concept. *(Don't remember the source but I had the same doubt and that's what I found in a couple of forums)*"
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5nilrc | Why do Americans not have a problem with moving football teams 100's of miles? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Here's the thing - Football is only actually about 150 years old, and the NFL itself not even 100. So many of these teams are fairly new. It's also a larger focus on the *team*, not the *location*. People don't root for New England, they root for the Patriots. They don't root for Philadelphia, they root for the Eagles. I'm going to make a slight assumption here, and I don't mean to offend. But I've found a lot of people from Europe tend to misunderstand just how *big* America is. There are 32 teams in the NFL, that's not even one *per state*. It's one team for every 5,000 square miles or so. Contrast to England, where in the Premier league *alone* we have 20 teams, which goes to about 1 for every 2,500 square miles - and that's not counting all of the other levels in the system (I'm not super familiar with it, this is just sort of a quick cursory search). And because the states are so much further apart, the idea of rooting for a team becomes less focused on location and more on the team itself - while you might root for some due to proximity, that's not always the case. Someone rooting for the San Fransisco 49ers from halfway across the country isn't going to suddenly be up in arms if they move cities, because it's so far away from them that they don't really know anything about the locale - they know about the team.",
"The people in the host city often are very upset. But they do not own the team. Fans that live across the country really do not care as they are not local and watch on tv anyway. Additionally professional sports has less community ties in the US than in the UK, at least with our football vs your football. The role of local team is filled by our High School and College teams, not the closest professional team that may be 6 or 7 hours drive away (multiple hundreds of miles). For example. I went to a small High School in Texas. The school served a population of around 8,000 people including all small towns and ranch land incorporated into the school district, with only around 4,000 people living in the town proper where the school was located. We averaged 3,000 people in attendance on the home team side per game. It is not uncommon for the University of Texas in Austin to have more than 100,000 people attending their games.",
"Oh we do have a problem! At least in Baltimore we hold onto a grudge of the Colts being SNUCK OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT on Mayflower moving trucks. This happened in 1984 and people STILL reference it like it was yesterday.",
"Plus, Americans move a lot anyway. I've moved 14 times. My daughter has moved 9 times in the past 4 years! We're just not as geographically rooted as some other cultures.",
"If an iconic team that's very closely tied to a certain city, like the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Green Bay Packers were even rumored to move, there'd be riots. Other teams tend to move more often. The Rams started out in Cleveland, then moved to Los Angeles, then to St Louis, and then headed back to Los Angeles this year. The Oakland Raiders started out in Oakland, moved to Los Angeles, then moved back to Oakland, and is now rumored to move to Las Vegas. The NFL truly is a business. Team owners look for profits. If they don't make a big enough profit in one city, they might move somewhere else.",
"In the US, college, and sometimes high school, sports teams fill the niche that you're describing. So, we're no too upset when pro teams move since we still have the local college team that isn't going anywhere.",
"One of the reasons why team is being moved is money(probably the only reason). SO if team fail to make enough revenue it means that people arent interested in team and there wont be a problem moving team somewhere where market is better. And its not just football, baseball - Montreal Expos became washington Nationals because they couldnt fill up arena. In hockey Atlanta Trashers to Winnipeg because hockey didnt appeal to people in city where football and basketball was more popular. Basketball i cant name any tham because i ddont really follow it, but i do remember some team moved somewhere."
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5,
4,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5nip2u | how far is the horizon? And how far is it the higher you are on land? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcbrtsf"
],
"text": [
"The method for working this out (assuming the horizon is perfectly flat) is to calculate the distance from your eye to sea level in meters, and multiply it by 13. Then you square root this to get the distance in KM."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
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